Low pressure moving onshore brought rain to much of the Mojave Desert. Isolated heavy rain and flooding occurred.
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Deaths and injuries are direct and indirect together, as the offices filed them. Damage is property and crops in the dollars of the year, not adjusted for inflation, and only where an office estimated it.
The episode as NWS VEF wrote it up.
Low pressure moving onshore brought rain to much of the Mojave Desert. Isolated heavy rain and flooding occurred. This episode continued into January 2017.
The local office's own words before the first event, as it sent them, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service text.
NWS Las Vegas, NV wrote its last area forecast discussion before the first event at Dec 31, 2:46 PM PST, 4 hours 53 minutes earlier.
Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Las Vegas NV 246 PM PST Sat Dec 31 2016 .SYNOPSIS...Another storm system will move into southern California tonight, bringing more rain and mountain snow, mainly to southeast California and northwest Arizona. An unsettled pattern will continue into next week bringing periods of breeziness and high clouds to the region. && .DISCUSSION...The next storm was sliding down the CA coast south of San Francisco this afternoon. Clouds on its front side were slowly increasing and thickening over southwest Inyo and western San Bernardino County. Low clouds oriented roughly northwest to southeast over the middle of the CWA were stubbornly hanging on and keeping temperatures down along the Highway 95 corridor. Similar to yesterday, most of the high resolution models keep the precip associated with the incoming storm south of Las Vegas overnight. After this storm departs on Sunday, all eyes turn north to the deep low settling into the Pacific Northwest. The models continue their overnight trend of retrograding all or a piece of this low offshore as the southern part of a Rex block by midweek, which is a dramatic shift from yesterday. If this scenario pans out, and confidence is very low due to the aforementioned shift, this would keep our area in a cloudy but mostly dry and mild pattern through at least Tuesday, with precip chances confined to the southern Great Basin and perhaps the higher terrain of Mohave County due to lingering moisture. The models now show a piece of the low getting picked up by the main flow pattern and becoming more progressive Wednesday and Thursday, which would bring an increased chance of precip to the Sierra and the southern Great Basin. As the low swings through on a west to east path Friday, a drying period should ensue, although the break could be brief. The late week cold temperatures discussed yesterday look far less likely today as the air sits over the Pacific and modifies for a day or two instead of driving down from north to south over land. Again, confidence is very low in anything after Monday or Tuesday. && .AVIATION...For McCarran...Winds are expected to remain light through Sunday afternoon, favoring a southerly direction for much of the period. Winds will begin to increase Sunday evening with gusty south winds expected Sunday night and Monday. As the system passes to the south of the area tonight, there will be a slight chance of a shower primarily between 06 and 12Z. CIGs will remain between 3-5k feet for much of the night before lifting on Sunday morning. For the rest of southern Nevada...northwest Arizona...and southeast California...A storm system will impact the Sierra and the deserts of San Bernardino County this evening and then push into Arizona overnight. This will keep low CIGs, BKN020-050 in the forecast for areas from Las Vegas south. Rain is expected to impact areas primarily along and south of the I-40 corridor late this afternoon and through the overnight hours. Unsettled weather will continue into next week with southwest winds beginning to increase across the region by Sunday afternoon. && .SPOTTER INFORMATION STATEMENT...Spotters are encouraged to report any significant weather according to standard operating procedures. && Morgan/Czyzyk For more forecast information...see us on our webpage: http://weather.gov/lasvegas or follow us on Facebook and Twitter
The Edwards AFB radar (KEYX), 51 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the first event began at 03:41 UTC.
1 flash flood. Local standard time, as filed.
The I-15 northbound on ramp from Lenwood Road was flooded with water, mud, and rocks.
After NWS Directive 10-1605, the rules offices file Storm Data by.
Every storm in California in 2016Every state in 2016This day in weather historyWarnings in California, December 2016
NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database, compiled from the National Weather Service’s monthly Storm Data. Complete through 2026-06; NCEI adds each month about 75 days after it ends and revises past years a few times a year. Rebuilt 2026-09-24. Each event’s entry at NCEI: 667708.