Unstable air mass continues to bring lightning storms to LV

An electrical storm about 5 a.m. Sunday brought the Las Vegas Valley little more than an early-morning wake-up call and muggy air as the Mexican monsoon air flow returned with a loud vengeance.

Showers and thunderstorms could continue all day today and into this evening, National Weather Service forecasters say.

While no measureable rain fell officially at McCarran International Airport on Sunday, a rain gauge maintained by the Regional Flood Control District at Tropicana Avenue and Pecos Road measured 0.25 of an inch from the predawn cloudburst.

While no damage was reported from Sunday's spectacular lightning storm that pounced on the valley from the northeast, several small fires were sparked in the Spring Mountains west of Las Vegas.

Bureau of Land Management fire crews quickly doused the fires in the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area Sunday afternoon.

For the 49th straight day in a row, Las Vegas did not reach normal temperatures on Sunday, although it seemed hot enough with higher humidity levels.

Sunday's high of 101 degrees Fahrenheit was one degree shy of the normal 102 degrees.

But what Southern Nevada lacked on the thermometer it has made up in humidity, hitting some of the highest readings ever recorded in the valley's history, the National Weather Service said.

During July humidity regularly reached 80 to 90 percent. "That's high for Las Vegas," long-term forecaster Ron McQueen said.

The moist, unstable air mass officially known as the Mexican monsoon flow shows no sign of disappearing any time soon, the National Weather Service computer models showed this weekend.

The threat of afternoon and evening thunderstorms will hang around for at least another month, meteorologists said.

The monsoon storms began on time this year, striking the valley first from July 8 to July 16.

The July storms left $20.5 million in damages to public facilities, most of them flood control projects. A full tally of private property is unavailable.

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