Red Rock Canyon to reopen Thursday after flooding hits area
A wet and windy Wednesday in the Las Vegas Valley left some parts of the valley flooded, prompting the closure of Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area and Spring Mountain Ranch State Park.
The heavy rain and flooding forced Red Rock Canyon’s scenic loop to close for the day and Spring Mountain Ranch State Park to close for about five hours due to flooding at the park gates. It reopened just before 3:30 p.m.
Late Wednesday afternoon, Red Rock officials said the scenic loop will re-open “late on Thursday” as crews work to clear debris from the road. Officials said, in a tweet, that they will provide an update “after 9am the estimated opening time.”
The #redrockcanyon #ScenicDrive will open late on Thursday 3/7 in order to clear all the debris deposited by today’s flooding. We will update after 9am the estimated opening time. pic.twitter.com/ZdBTC8kzTm
— Red Rock Canyon LV (@RedRockCynLV) March 7, 2019
Much of the valley, including McCarran International Airport, northeast and southern Las Vegas and the Spring Valley area, saw between a 0.10 to 0.25 of an inch of rain through 2 p.m. At the same time, Red Rock Canyon received 1.34 inches of rain and Summerlin and Centennial Hills saw up to a half-inch of rain.
The bulk of rainfall had passed as of 2:30 p.m., meteorologist Kate Guillet said, although some areas in the valley could see “brief sprinkles” Wednesday evening.
About 0.25 of an inch of rain was measured at the airport by the end of the storm, the weather service said.
During the height of the rainfall between 5 a.m. and 1 p.m., 43 crashes were reported on Southern Nevada highways, according to the Nevada Highway Patrol.
Wind gusts also reached 30 mph Wednesday, and the high for the day reached 62. The clouds were expected to clear during the evening hours with an overnight low of 50.
Thursday will reach 65 with mostly sunny conditions and have wind gusts of up to 25 mph. Rain may return on Friday, which has a 20 percent chance for showers in the evening.
Friday will see a high of 60, followed by 61 on Saturday and 60 on Sunday and Monday. The valley may see another patch of showers early next week, as Monday has a 20 percent chance for rain, followed by a 30 percent chance on Tuesday, the weather service said.
Contact Rio Lacanlale at rlacanlale@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0381. Follow @riolacanlale on Twitter. Review-Journal staff writers Mike Shoro, Katelyn Newberg and reporter Lukas Eggen contributed to this report.
