A cold low pressure system brought snow down to the Mojave Desert floor.
Every event with a place to put it; 4 filed by county or forecast zone are drawn at its center, in a lighter ring. Tap one for its entry below.
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.
A cold low pressure system brought snow down to the Mojave Desert floor.
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 17, 3:15 PM PST, 3 hours 21 minutes earlier.
Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Las Vegas NV 315 PM PST Sun Feb 17 2019 .SYNOPSIS...An abnormally cold weather pattern will persist over our region through the coming week. This will allow cold low pressure systems to drop out of Western Canada and bring chances for snow down to the desert floors. The first system will arrive today into Monday, and a potentially colder and more vigorous storm could impact the region Thursday and Friday. && .SHORT TERM...through Monday night. The ingredients are still coming together for fairly extensive snow showers to develop across the lower deserts of Southern Nevada and nearby surrounding states this evening and tonight. Recent satellite loops showed a vorticity lobe rotating along the Inyo/San Bernardino County border and will move across southern Clark County through this evening. The vorticity advection will provide increased upward forcing over the area from Clark County southward to I-40 in conjunction with increasing instability as colder air in the H7-H5 layer moves overhead. This will support the expected scattered to numerous showers with snow levels lowering to between 2000 and 2500 feet MSL this evening. The HRRR, CAMs and HREF models have been depicting a focus of showers directly over Clark County this evening until after midnight the approaching cold front and an embedded closed circulation aloft coincide. This would be favorable for at least a few hours of sustained showers with the majority of the Las Vegas Valley seeing some snow. Confidence continues to increase that we will see around an inch or so of snow over the elevated western and southern parts of the Las Vegas Valley. We will continue to monitor the developing situation through this evening. Showers will taper off late tonight and early Monday morning on the back side of the low pressure system, but isolated to scattered snow showers in the cold northerly flow will continue...especially over Mohave County. Dry air will finally overspread the entire region by Monday night with brisk north winds and low temperatures at or below freezing across all zones Death Valley and the Colorado River Valley from Laughlin to Lake Havasu. && .LONG TERM...Tuesday through Sunday. Cold conditions will continue through much of the week followed by some slight moderation over the weekend. High temperatures are forecast to be 15-20 degrees below normal Tue-Fri and 8-12 degrees below normal over the weekend. Low temps will be exceptionally cold for the time of year with freezing temperatures in many lower elevation locations. Most of the Las Vegas Valley will see temps at or near freezing each morning into the weekend. An expansive low pressure trough over the Rockies on Tuesday moves east with our next weather maker taking shape over western Canada. Strong high pressure off the West Coast guides this energy southward into the Pac NW and Great Basin Wednesday to the southwest deserts Wednesday night and Thursday. This cold Canadian airmass settles over our area dropping snow levels at the same time moisture is forecast to increase. This combination along with broad scale uplifting could result in accumulating snow in lower elevations. Confidence is high regarding the weather pattern With models consistent in forecasting a large, cold trough impacting our area Wednesday night and Thursday. Models continue to adjust solutions in where the components of the trough set up and the associated details including location/timing of precipitation, snow levels and rain/snow amounts. The latest round of model solutions focus the most significant precipitation amounts over Mohave County. There remains high variability in when and where models decide to close off a low and this information will come into play when deciding the higher resolution details and what those details will mean with regard to impacts. The latest GFS has a broad, closed low forming over eastern California/Nevada Thursday morning continuing to deepen through the day, with a compact circulation centered over southern Nevada Thursday afternoon. The trough axis slips east of our area by midday Friday. The ECMWF is of similar strength but slower in developing the closed circulation over southern Nevada and features an impressive jet that drives the trough deeper into Baja and northern Mexico. The Canadian, although similar, is the outlier of the three solutions closing the low off over southwest Utah and then moving it to the east-southeast. With all these model adjustments, it is too early to talk about the smaller scale details such as snow amounts and locations, impacts and types of products that may be needed and when. The European MOS keeps the cold air entrenched into the weekend even though the weather pattern moderates. The GFS MOS is warmer and may be better handling the warm up the pattern suggests given the time of year and where our temperatures should be overall. && .AVIATION...For McCarran...Winds are expected to be primarily out of the south/southwest although they may be erratic and gusty at times with all the shower activity around the area. Still looking favorable for prevailing showers this evening however timing of onset looks a little later between 05-07Z, lasting through about 11- 12Z. Cloud decks down to 5k feet still looks about right with the precipitation. Low confidence but a distinct possibility is lower clouds and visibility due to snow showers. A small chance of a shower or two lingering after daybreak Monday but dry conditions should return by mid day with BKN CIGS between 7-9k feet. Winds mid morning through the afternoon hours on Monday will be from the northwest 10-12 knots with gusts up to 20 knots. For the rest of southern Nevada, northwest Arizona and southeast California...Scattered showers across much of the region through tonight with CIGS down to 4-6k feet in shower activity. Winds will generally follow diurnal patterns except where influenced by shower activity. Westerly winds gusting to 25-30 knots will continue in DAG through at least the evening hours. Gusty northwest winds are expected across much of the region on Monday with lingering showers over mainly Mohave County. && .SPOTTER INFORMATION STATEMENT...Scattered to numerous snow showers will occur today and tonight across the Mojave Desert. Spotters are encouraged to report any significant weather or impacts according to standard operating procedures. && SHORT TERM...Adair LONG TERM/AVIATION...Salmen 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.
3 winter weather, 1 heavy snow. Local standard time, as filed.
Snow in Mesquite contributed to a big rig jackknifing and closing I-15 north at mile marker 122.
Heavy snow fell on the west side of Las Vegas (2.25 inches in Summerlin), with lesser amounts in Henderson (1 inch) and southwest Las Vegas (0.75 inch).
Slick roads from the previous night's snow contributed to several crashes on I-15 between St. Rose Parkway and Jean, closing the highway in both directions.
Snowy roads closed the Red Rock Scenic Loop.
After NWS Directive 10-1605, the rules offices file Storm Data by.
Every storm in Nevada in 2019Every state in 2019This day in weather historyWarnings in Nevada, February 2019
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: 805446, 805447, 805448, 805449.