An unseasonably strong trough brought a period of strong southwesterly winds to the Mojave Desert.
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The episode as NWS VEF wrote it up.
An unseasonably strong trough brought a period of strong southwesterly winds to the Mojave Desert.
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 Jun 28, 10:38 AM PST, 37 minutes earlier.
Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Las Vegas NV 1138 AM PDT Sun Jun 28 2020 .SYNOPSIS...Strong winds will spread over the region today and tonight resulting in a significant fire weather risk as well as other wind impacts, especially for higher terrain areas. This windy event should conclude late tonight and allow for a cold front to bring much cooler temperatures to begin the upcoming week then a gradual warm up expected moving into the holiday weekend and an increasing chance for some isolated thunderstorms for northwest Arizona. && .SHORT TERM...through Monday. All eyes are on wind potential today and what impacts that may bring to the region. Some fine tuning of wind grids this morning did not result in much overall change in the expectations for today. One consideration was a possible upgrade to a high wind warning for northern zones such as Lincoln/Esmeralda/Nye counties (zones 014/015). While there is some support, namely from the GFS LAMP and GFS based outcomes today for sustained winds reaching 40 mph and/or gusts over 58 mph, the majority of guidance is below these thresholds. NBM has consistently kept gust potential below these criteria as well as HRRR/HRRRX/RAP and other hi res guidance so feel confident with the strongly worded NPW currently in place. We did however move the start time up to begin this morning as some gusts were already exceeding 40 mph and some dust impacts impacting the valley. Two main impacts will be of focus today in regards to the aforementioned wind. First, wildfire potential, which has been mentioned for the last several days, but is of particular concern with two large fires in Lincoln county. Both GOES-W meso-sectors are focused on the southwest today to help monitor these fires. Second is dust potential. Already this morning, the Jean dry lake bed erupted into a significant plume of dust that reduced visibility briefly for KLAS/KHND and the eastern Valley. This should continue to be the case periodically throughout the day today as winds continue to increase through the afternoon. Will be keeping a close eye on other dust sources across the Great Basin for potential need for dust storm warnings. Did increase the dust wording in the Wx grids as well. Contrary to indications yesterday, there may be a need to extend some of the wind products after 06Z tonight looking at the latest wind trends. This will be highly dependent on frontal timing and the magnitude of post frontal winds though. For now, left this unchanged but will continue to look at this through the afternoon. May leave this as a short-fuse decision tonight nonetheless. Moving into Monday, wind potential decreases substantially, with elevated winds remaining for eastern Mohave County, enough to result in borderline RFW criteria. Otherwise, the main weather talking point for Monday will be the much cooler temperatures that continue to trend downward with latest NBM guidance. As of now, KLAS looks like it may not even reach 90 degrees. .LONG TERM...Tuesday through the Weekend. A period of below normal temperatures will be welcome through the first half of the week but this trend will not hang around for too long. Temperatures should respond to building heights and a transition to southwest flow over the Southwest. A quasi- monsoonal-like pattern attempts to set up with a weak high positioned over the southern US Thursday and shifting west over central NM Friday. This in phase with a broad low over the Pacific Northwest would set the stage for building moisture depending on how these features orient themselves. Late week ensemble cluster do show these details are not yet high confidence, but PWAT values do markedly increase late week up the Colorado River Valley and east. NBM still keeps PoPs below mentionable values Thursday and Friday but decided to increase PoPs to at least slight chance for these two days for Mohave County given the synoptic set up, modest instability and PWAT ranges from 0.75 to 1.1" per GEFS/EC ensemble members. After Friday, details are even less clear but the ridge continues to slowly creep westward and weaken further which should push PoP potential more into eastern Arizona and New Mexico. && .FIRE WEATHER...Southwest winds will continue to increase across the entire region with gusts 35 to 55 mph expected through the evening. Gusts over 60 mph are likely in the Spring Mountains and eastern Sierra slopes. These strong winds plus very low relative humidity this afternoon will result in widespread critical fire weather conditions across the region. Winds lessen late tonight and Monday, but still remain elevated, especially across northwest Arizona. Fire weather concerns diminish due to much lower winds through much of the week after Monday. && .AVIATION...For McCarran...Strong, south-southwest winds will be present for much of the day. Dust has been an issue this morning which briefly dropped vsbys to 2 1/2 miles at the terminal. Conditions have improved over the last hour. However, there is potential for brief vsby drops to 2-5 miles this afternoon but prevailing conditions should be VFR. Peak winds are expected between 20z and 03z at speeds of 30 knots gusting 40 knots. However, there could be a second push of strong winds this evening which would allow these winds to linger through around midnight. This second push has the potential to be stronger and winds could reach AWW criteria some time between 03z-08z with speeds of around 35 knots gusting 45-50 knots. Not high enough confidence in this occurrence to add into the TAF at this time but will continue to monitor. Late tonight into early tomorrow morning winds will be on a decreasing trend. A cold front is expected to move through the valley tomorrow morning between 15z-17z which will shift winds to the northwest with speeds of around 10 knots gusting 15-20 knots. Lighter winds expected on Monday. For the rest of southern Nevada, northwest Arizona and southeast California...Strong west to southwest winds will continue into this evening for most areas and even into late tonight for portions of the Mojave Desert and Clark County. Widespread wind speeds of 25-35 knots gusting 35-45 knots are expected. Strong winds coming off the Sierra into the Owens Valley this afternoon could even gust as high as 55-65 knots. High winds will also cause an issue with lowering vsbys in blowing dust. The Las Vegas valley terminals as well as KDAG are the most likely to see potential drops to 2-5 miles this afternoon. A cold front will work its way southward today through the southern Great Basin and Inyo County; reaching southern Nevada Monday morning which will turn winds to the north/northwest and continue gusty winds around 10-20 knots gusting 20-25 knots. && .SPOTTER INFORMATION STATEMENT...Spotters are encouraged to report any significant weather or impacts according to standard operating procedures. && DISCUSSION...TB3 AVIATION...Guillet For more forecast information...see us on our webpage: https://weather.gov/lasvegas or follow us on Facebook and Twitter
The national radar mosaic for the moment the first event began.
2 high wind. Local standard time, as filed.
Several stations in the Spring Mountains reported high winds, with the peak gust measured at Mountain Springs. The high winds also fueled the Mahogany Fire, which ignited on this day and was fully contained on July 7.
After NWS Directive 10-1605, the rules offices file Storm Data by.
Every storm in Nevada in 2020Every state in 2020This day in weather historyWarnings in Nevada, June 2020
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: 892415, 892417.