Area Forecast Discussion
Issued by NWS Las Vegas, NV
Issued by NWS Las Vegas, NV
742 FXUS65 KVEF 241556 AFDVEF Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Las Vegas NV 855 AM PDT Fri May 24 2024 .SYNOPSIS...Expect seasonal temperatures to continue through the weekend with periods of gusty winds, particularly on Friday afternoon through Saturday morning. The southern Great Basin and Sierra could see a few showers and thunderstorms Friday but most areas will remain dry. High pressure builds in over the area on Memorial Day bringing warmer, above normal temperatures to the area. && .UPDATE...Starting to see increased winds along the Colorado River, including gusts of 15 to 25 mph out of the south to southeast. These winds should increase out of the southwest with peak gusts up to 30 mph. Choppy water and increased wave activity may lead to hazardous boating conditions and a Lake Wind Advisory will be in effect today from noon to midnight. Gusty southwesterly winds will also pick up across the rest of the forecast area today and a Wind Advisory will go into effect in western San Bernardino County at 3 PM this afternoon. High resolution models still indicate the potential for rain showers across the southern Great Basin this afternoon and evening. Precipitation totals should remain light. && .SHORT TERM...through Saturday. Broad trough will linger across the Western US today, with a shortwave trough embedded in the flow on track to clip the region this afternoon and evening. This will result in fairly widespread gusty conditions, particularly over the Western Mojave Desert where periodic gusts over 40 mph remain likely and a wind advisory exists for the Barstow area. Further east, gusty conditions will prevail in the afternoon and evening hours across most of the central and eastern Mojave Desert, and spreading into Northwest Arizona. However, the winds further east will not quite reach widespread 40 mph gusts, but it will nonetheless be fairly blustery. Along the River Valley, the winds will result in elevated wave activity and chop on the water across Lake Mead, Mohave, and Havasu, and the Lake Wind Advisory for those areas looks good. Remember to use caution and wear a life jacket if you have plans on the lakes over the holiday weekend. In addition to the winds, cooling aloft and modest mid-level moisture will allow for a few high based showers to develop across the Southern Great Basin this afternoon and evening. Not expecting much precipitation accumulation as the shower activity will be weak and fighting low level dry air, but enhanced surface winds and a quick hundredth or two will be possible, mainly across northern Lincoln, central Nye, and Esmeralda counties. Shortwave will shift east on Saturday but we will remain under a westerly flow aloft and some lingering troughing across the Western states. This will keep breezy conditions going into Saturday, though overall the winds will begin to trend downward compared to Friday. Temperatures today will top out near normal, with very subtle cooling to follow on Saturday. .LONG TERM...Sunday through Thursday. Flow aloft quickly transitions from a tough to ridge over the 2nd half of the holiday weekend. Ensemble guidance is in good agreement on placing the ridge axis just east of our CWA. This should allow light southerly breezes to enhance vertical mixing, warming temperatures in conjunction with rising 500mb heights. This general synoptic pattern looks like it`ll hold through at least most of next week. There is a PacNW trough that will try to deamplify the ridge by midweek, but at the moment it appears that any 500mb height falls it induces over our area will be offset by an uptick in breezes and mixing. The NBM median high for Las Vegas hovers around 100 degrees each day next week, though the 25th-75th percentile spread does increase in the latter half due to uncertainty in ridge amplitude. Bottom line: above-normal temperatures are very likely (90% chance) next week. The aforementioned mid-week trough is really the only potential "weathermaker" in the extended forecast. Should it dig south into the Northern Great Basin, there is potential for gusty conditions across the southern half of our CWA and maybe some isolated convection in our northern zones. However, only about 20% of all ensemble members support this solution. && .AVIATION...For Harry Reid...Winds up to 8 knots favoring a southwest direction through the remainder of the night. The wind direction may briefly back to the southeast after 8 am before turning southwest and becoming gusty up to 25 knots. Otherwise, FEW clouds around 12k feet along with SCT clouds around 25k feet today. For the rest of southern Nevada, northwest Arizona and southeast California...Most areas will see light winds this morning before winds turn southwest and increase late in the morning and continue through the afternoon. Southwest winds 15-25 knots will be fairly common with a few areas seeing gusts up to 30 knots. FEW-SCT150 and SCT-BKN250 expected today. && .SPOTTER INFORMATION STATEMENT...Spotters are encouraged to report any significant weather or impacts according to standard operating procedures. && $$ UPDATE...Meltzer SHORT TERM...Outler LONG TERM...Woods AVIATION...Salmen For more forecast information...see us on our webpage: https://weather.gov/lasvegas or follow us on Facebook and Twitter