LAS VEGAS — Intense summer thunderstorms that drenched parts of Las Vegas — causing water to cascade from casino ceilings and pool on the carpet of a stadium-sized sports betting area — were part of a broad regional monsoon pattern that may repeat through the weekend, a National Weather Service official said Friday.
“We’re getting right into the heart of the most active part,” said John Adair, a veteran meteorologist at the weather service office near Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas. “This is turning out to be a pretty active monsoon season, compared with the last five years or so. There’s plenty of more opportunities for thunderstorms to develop.”
The annual weather pattern has brought a parade of storms across the U.S. Southwest in recent weeks that lead to flooding in normally dry washes, rain measured in inches and rescue operations.
In Arizona, a driver had to be rescued from a vehicle caught in floodwaters in Apache Junction. A youth conservation crew abandoned the red truck they were riding in at Canyon de Chelly National Monument on the Navajo Nation when it got stuck in the mud and water rose around it. Mohave County sheriff’s officials rescued a woman who was clinging to a stop sign earlier this week after her car was swept away.
Parts of the Hualapai Mountains in Mohave County have received up to 6 inches (15.2 centimeters) of rain in recent days, Adair said. The National Weather Service said parts of Arizona can expect 1 (2.5 centimeters) to 2 (5 centimeters) inches of rain per hour before a flood watch expired Saturday morning.
While the rain is welcome in a region gripped by drought, it creates headaches for neighborhoods where wildfires have stripped the land of vegetation, which normally slows and partially absorbs floodwaters.
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said Thursday the Federal Emergency Management Agency granted a request to include effects of flooding and mudslides in certain counties hit by massive wildfires this year to the state’s disaster declaration.
In northern Arizona, Flagstaff residents have grown accustomed to constant alerts on cell phones and sirens in neighborhoods warning of imminent flooding.
Bret Henneman estimates he has about 3,500 sandbags around his home just north of Flagstaff where two wildfires burned this spring. His wife was babysitting and had the back door open two weeks ago when heavy rain fell and sent a few inches of rain and mud through the home.
With every flood…
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