Wanted: Rain. Las Vegas to reach 200 days in a row of no precipitation

Alan Halaly, Las Vegas Review-Journal on Jan 29, 2025

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LAS VEGAS — Las Vegas is about to see its 200th day with no measurable rain picked up at the city’s airport monitoring station.

Wednesday will mark Sin City’s 200th day without the station measuring more than one-hundredth of an inch of rain. The longest consecutive dry streak the valley saw previously was in 2020, with 240 days of no measurable rain. The third-highest streak was in 1959 with 150 days.

The National Weather Service’s Las Vegas office posted a “wanted” poster Wednesday morning on X with a photo of splashing water that read “Wanted: Measurable Rain,” adding that it was last seen on July 13.

“It really shows how dry it has been these past few years,” Morgan Stessman, a weather service meteorologist, said in an interview Wednesday. “We here in Southern Nevada are still seeing drought conditions worsen.”

The U.S. Drought Monitor has Clark County listed as almost entirely under “extreme drought” conditions as of the last available update released Jan. 23.

Rainfall doesn’t have much of an impact on Lake Mead levels: Tropical Storm Hilary brought nearly a monsoon season’s worth of precipitation but didn’t raise the reservoir significantly. However, the lack of rain, which drains out soils and often prompts more city water use, has prompted drought classifications to worsen, Stessman said.

It’s not immediately clear whether Las Vegas will break the 2020 dry spell record based on modeling, Stessman said.

February, which she said is generally the wettest month that the city sees, may bring some relief. Projections give Las Vegas a 33 to 40% chance of above normal rain conditions over the next 14 days, Stessman said.

“That doesn’t bode well for drought improvement,” Stessman said.

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