Dry heat: Las Vegas Valley sees near-record dry monsoon season in 2024
Finding enough rain to get your toes wet during the nearly completed monsoon season has been nearly impossible across the Las Vegas Valley this year.
A few neighborhoods showed no rainfall during the first two monsoon months — the season runs from June 15 to Sept. 30 — and the vast majority of Regional Flood Control rain gauges show from 0.04 inches to less than a third of an inch of rain.
In short, it has been a near-record dry monsoon season, with just 0.08 inches of rain seen at Harry Reid International Airport since June 15, compared to a monsoon season norm of 1.06 inches.
“We’re just on the edge of monsoon activity,” National Weather Service meteorologist Ashley Nickerson said, explaining that if the center of the moonsonal system sets up over the Four Corners, or where Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Utah meet, then the valley may get decent precipitation. This year the center of the system was a bit to the east, so little rainfall circled around to the valley.
The last two monsoon seasons have seen bountiful rainfall, with the airport recording 2.88 inches in 2023 and 1.77 inches in 2022. In 2020, the airport measured only a trace.
In general, the Blue-Diamond/Summerlin area on the west side and the Calico Hills area of Henderson has received rainfall of around an inch or slightly higher in some areas while the flat central valley shows close to nothing.
Harris Springs, a few miles east of Mount Charleston, leads the rainfall total with 3.88 inches this monsoon season while about a dozen gauges showed an inch or more, mostly in higher elevations or drainage areas for taller, sloped terrain. Mount Charleston has received 1.26 inches with the Spring Mountains averaging close to 2 inches in most gauges. Red Rock Canyon has received 0.35 inches with Brownstone Canyon slightly to the north at 0.67 inches. A west Summerlin gauge shows 1.06 inches.
Outside of the valley to the southwest, a gauge at the Jean dry lake bed has received 1.97 inches and another gauge on the northwest side of Interstate 15 has logged 1.10 inches so far this monsoon season.
For the year, the airport has received 2.27 inches of rain and the normal for mid-September is 3 inches.
Contact Marvin Clemons at mclemons@reviewjournal.com.