Rain brings flooding throughout Las Vegas Valley — VIDEO
A storm system that dumped more than half as much rain as the Las Vegas Valley saw all of last year also brought with it the wettest January day on record.
From midnight to 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, the valley saw 1.33 inches of rain, the weather service said. The previous record was set on Jan. 21, 2010, when the valley had 0.89 inches of rain. The weather service began recording the statistic in 1937.
The valley had about 2.4 inches of rain in 2017. The average rainfall for the valley is 4.2 inches, the weather service said.
“It’s overachieving, definitely,” meteorologist Caleb Steele said of the storm. The weather service said Monday night that it expected most parts of the valley to see a quarter-inch to a half-inch of rain.
According to the Clark County Regional Flood District, areas of Summerlin had about 1.3 inches of rain since the storm system began moving into Southern Nevada on Monday morning. Downtown Las Vegas saw just under 1.4 inches of rain, and the Strip’s north end saw slightly more rainfall at about 1.5 inches.
Some of the storm’s heaviest rain fell in Henderson, where just under 1.7 inches of rainfall was recorded near West Lake Mead Parkway and U.S. Highway 95. One wash in the Green Valley master-planned community recorded about 2.35 inches of rainfall since the beginning of the storm.
Meteorologist Alex Boothe said rain is expected to continue until about 7 p.m. On Monday, the storm system broke a record 116-day dry spell. Dry conditions are expected to return Wednesday when a forecast high of 61 degrees.
Contact Blake Apgar at bapgar@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5298. Follow @blakeapgar on Twitter.
Prescribed fire
Bureau of Land Management fire managers are anticipating favorable weather conditions for pile burning Wednesday on BLM-managed public land along the Muddy River, about 5.5 miles northwest of Moapa.
The prescribed fire is expected to burn 100 piles on land where invasive tamarisk has been thinned as part of an ongoing effort by the BLM Southern Nevada to reduce hazardous fuels for the surrounding community.
At least 22 firefighters will assist with the fire, including two who will work overnight to ensure that it is confined to the piled tamarisk.
