A cold Pacific low pressure system brought isolated heavy snow to the southern Great Basin.
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The episode as NWS VEF wrote it up.
A cold Pacific low pressure system brought isolated heavy snow to the southern Great Basin.
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 Feb 26, 2:33 PM PST, 6 hours 27 minutes earlier.
Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Las Vegas NV 233 PM PST Mon Feb 26 2018 .SYNOPSIS...Rain and snow chances will spread southward from the southern Great Basin into the Mojave Desert late tonight and continue into Tuesday night, with a few thunderstorms possible over Clark and Mohave Counties Tuesday afternoon. It will be much cooler on Tuesday, with a slow warming trend beginning Wednesday before the next storm brings more unsettled weather Thursday into the weekend. && .SHORT TERM...through Tuesday night. Oncoming storm is already hitting the central valley of California with thunderstorms and low elevation snow. Closer to home, south southwest winds took a while to mix down, but finally kicked in this afternoon with an associated sudden jump in temperatures. Tonight, precip chances will spread from the Sierra to the southern Great Basin, and perhaps into far western San Bernardino County as the storm tracks southward down the Central California Coast and the pre frontal moisture plume pushes toward the Mojave Desert. Tuesday morning gets quite interesting as the low center rolls into southwest California. Much of our area will be under difluent southerly flow which will advect moisture up the Colorado River Valley, which is a vaguely similar pattern to the storm of January 8-9, except there is not as much moisture available with this storm as there was then. Raised PoPs some more for Tuesday, mainly in an arc from southern Mohave County through Las Vegas and into the Spring Mountains and Mojave Preserve, and also lingered them longer into Tuesday evening as the low center meanders east across the CA/NV/AZ triple point. Raised precip amounts a bit more as well, and kept snow levels down at 3500-4500 feet, which spells 3-5 inches of snow on the Spring Mountains all the way down into Red Rock Canyon and over a tenth of an inch of rain in Las Vegas, possibly mixed with a little snow on the west edge of the valley. High temps Tuesday will be about ten degrees cooler than today. .LONG TERM...Wednesday through Sunday. Still trying to fine tune the long term forecast as a more unsettled pattern sets up of the West Coast. A trough will dig south into the area on Thursday which will allow for moist air to return to the region. Still looks like showers may develop over the Sierras and southern portions of the Great Basin on Thursday as moisture and forcing increases with the influence of the trough to our west. As the upper level system shifts eastward on Friday, showers should spread more south and east. Models have come into a bit better agreement on how precipitation will develop on Friday, so sped up the overspreading of scattered showers. After Friday, confidence decreases as model disagree on how multiple waves of energy will swing through the mean trough. How these waves develop and how far south the main upper level trough will sits is going to make or break whether or not we see more showery activity and cloud cover. Thinking at this time that there will be more clouds than sun with chances for showers mainly over Lincoln, Nye, and Esmeralda counties. Higher confidence through that temperatures will continue to run slightly below normal through the weekend. Will need to watch how models develop winds on Thursday and Friday. Significant differences still exist between long term models on how strong winds will be towards the end of the week. Favored the stronger solutions at this time based on how winds usually develop in this type of pattern. && .AVIATION...For McCarran...South-southwest wind with gusts of 20-30kts will continue through this evening. CIGS will lower by early Tuesday morning with BKN060-080 and showers in the vicinity, then ceilings will lower further and rain chances will spread to the terminal by mid to late morning. Rain chances will end and clouds will lift/decrease Tuesday night. For the rest of southern Nevada, northwest Arizona and southeast California...Gusty south-southwest winds will persist through this evening. Mountain obscurations will be common Tuesday with CIGS 030- 050 in rain and snow showers. Can not rule out a slight chance of thunderstorms in Clark and Mohave Counties. Conditions will improve from northwest to southeast Tuesday afternoon through Wednesday morning. && .SPOTTER INFORMATION STATEMENT...Spotters are encouraged to report any significant weather or impacts according to standard operating procedures. && SHORT TERM/AVIATION...Morgan LONG TERM...Wolf For more forecast information...see us on our webpage: http://weather.gov/lasvegas or follow us on Facebook and Twitter
The national radar mosaic for the moment the first event began.
1 heavy snow. Local standard time, as filed.
Five to seven inches of snow fell in Dyer.
After NWS Directive 10-1605, the rules offices file Storm Data by.
Every storm in Nevada in 2018Every state in 2018This day in weather historyWarnings in Nevada, February 2018
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: 738893.