Dry weather expected to return to valley by this weekend

By Las Vegas Sun Staff (contact)

Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2013 | 9:42 a.m.

Thunderstorms that have inundated parts of the Las Vegas Valley for much of the past week remain in the forecast today, but by the end of the week, sunny skies and dry weather again will be the norm, National Weather Service forecasters say.

The outlook today for Las Vegas is for the possibility of scattered thunderstorms into the night. Storms could produce heavy rain, gusty winds and localized flash flooding.

At 9:15 a.m., the National Weather Service in Las Vegas tweeted that a batch of hit-and-miss light showers would move across the area through the midmorning hours.

The chance of storms is 30 percent today and tonight.

Thunderstorms Monday afternoon and evening dumped rain over several parts of the valley. The Regional Flood Control District’s gauge at Sunset Road and Pittman Wash in the east valley measured the highest amount of precipitation during the storm, 1.06 inches of rain. Other rainfall amounts, according to the RTC gauges, included .04 of an inch on Sahara Drive at Pittman Wash in the east valley, .12 of an inch on the western 215 Beltway near Cheyenne, and .43 inches in Green Valley. The NWS measured .01 of an inch of rain between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. today at its official recording station at McCarran International Airport.

By Wednesday, the chance of storms across the valley is expected to decrease to 20 percent. A slow drying trend continues Thursday and Friday, and the outlook for the weekend calls for sunny skies with only a slight chance of storms.

Temperatures will remain in the normal range, with highs in the low 100s and overnight lows near 80.

The Las Vegas office of the National Weather Service recorded an official .28 of an inch of rain in August at McCarran. The highest one-day amount of rainfall in the month was .17 of an inch overnight Aug. 18-19.

The high temperature for August was 109 on Aug. 17; the lowest temperature was 70 on Aug. 29. The average high for August was 100.1 degrees while the average overnight low was 78.5 degrees.