Las Vegas weather took a turn Wednesday afternoon as monsoon thunderstorms drenched parts of the eastern and northern valley, even as the scorching triple-digit heat that has defined the summer began to ease, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
The heaviest rain fell near Nellis Air Force Base, which recorded 0.78 inches, and East Las Vegas, which saw 0.51 inches, based on totals reported by the Regional Flood Control District. Centennial Hills picked up 0.31 inches, while Henderson near Burkholder Middle School recorded 0.24 inches. UNLV logged 0.12 inches and North Las Vegas received just 0.08 inches, illustrating how localized the monsoon downpours can be across the sprawling valley.
Despite the soaking storms elsewhere, Harry Reid International Airport, the valley's official reporting station, measured only a trace of rain. The airport still reached 101 degrees Wednesday and experienced flight delays of up to 45 minutes in the afternoon, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
The airport's rain gauge has been remarkably dry this summer. Reid has not recorded measurable precipitation since June 23, when it logged 0.02 inches, ending a rainless streak of 124 days. That was the only measurable rainfall the airport saw in June. July brought just a trace of rain on July 19, and through the first part of August, Reid has again recorded only a trace. That leaves the airport well behind the historical average August rainfall of 0.32 inches for Las Vegas.
A Cooldown After a Brutal Stretch
Relief from the extreme heat is on the way. The National Weather Service forecast a high of 97 degrees for Las Vegas on Thursday, which would mark the first day below 100 degrees in the valley since July 17, when temperatures also topped out at 97 and stood as the coolest day of that month.
Jenn Soulat of the National Weather Service said a low-pressure system moving in from the Pacific Ocean will keep valley temperatures below the seasonal normal of 104 degrees through the weekend. Along with the cooler air comes a better chance of rain, with a 15 percent chance forecast for Thursday that climbs to 50 percent on Friday, Soulat said.
The cooldown comes after a summer marked by some of the most intense heat the valley has recorded in years. The hottest day of 2025 arrived Aug. 1, when Reid hit 115 degrees, just one degree shy of the all-time record high set in both 1979 and 1938. July itself ranked as the third warmest on record for Las Vegas, with an average temperature of 96.6 degrees, according to the Review-Journal.
Overnight relief was also hard to come by for much of the summer. On July 29, the morning low at Reid finally dropped to 89 degrees, ending a six-day streak in which overnight lows never fell below 90 degrees, the longest such stretch ever recorded in the valley. Las Vegas notched its first 110-degree day of the year on July 8, and the airport ultimately tallied 12 days at or above 110 degrees in July. While that total exceeded the annual normal of 10 such days, it fell far short of the record 36 days of 110-plus heat logged in 2024.
A Broader Pattern Across the West
The monsoon moisture and heat swings in Las Vegas are part of a larger pattern of extreme weather gripping much of the western United States this month. According to reporting from USA Today, dangerously hot temperatures and dry conditions swept across states from California to Colorado over the preceding weekend, with forecasts calling for temperatures as high as 114 degrees in some areas. That heat was expected to persist through midweek and push east into the central Rockies and Great Plains.
Communities across Arizona, California and Nevada were placed under heat warnings as the hot, dry conditions combined with heavy winds to elevate wildfire risk throughout the region, AccuWeather meteorologists said. Lightning storms across Nevada, Colorado, Utah and California carried the added danger of sparking new fires even as crews battled blazes already burning in the Pacific Northwest near Spokane, Washington. AccuWeather Meteorologist Kai Kerkow said dry conditions and locally gusty winds were expected to sustain a very high wildfire risk across the Northwest, supporting continued fire growth and the potential for new ignitions.
Smoke from those fires has degraded air quality in several states and, according to AccuWeather Lead Long-Range Expert Paul Pastelok, some of that debris has drifted east, giving skies in parts of the country a hazy appearance. Meanwhile, far from the arid West, humid air over the Eastern and Central United States has been fueling a different kind of extreme weather, with severe thunderstorms, heavy rainfall and flash flooding threatening areas from the Great Plains through the Midwest and East Coast.
For Las Vegas residents, the immediate story remains the tug-of-war between lingering summer heat and the monsoon season's unpredictable moisture. The scattered nature of Wednesday's storms, heavy rain at Nellis and in the east valley but barely a trace at the airport, underscores how differently neighborhoods just a few miles apart can experience the same weather system. With the low-pressure system from the Pacific expected to hold temperatures below normal into the weekend and rain chances climbing to 50 percent Friday, forecasters say the valley may see more of that same unevenness before the heat reasserts itself.
