Las Vegas braces for 4th night of severe thunderstorms

Las Vegas braced for its fourth straight night of monsoonal wind and rain on Saturday after severe thunderstorms and heavy gusts pummeled the region Thursday and Friday, meteorologists said.

Storms consumed casinos, airports and parking lots Thursday night and continued again on Friday night when at least 16,000 people suffered power outages, the Review-Journal reported.

Officials at Nellis Air Force Base reported winds of 54 mph on Friday, according to the report.

Fox Weather Meteorologist Seth Darling said “isolated thunderstorms” like the one that pummeled the Las Vegas Strip on Thursday are possible again after 2 a.m. on Sunday morning.

Video posted online showed water pouring through the ceiling onto the carpet at the iconic Caesar’s Palace casino.

The Strip saw 71 mph winds when a storm “collapsed” directly overheard, Darling said. A storm that bad is not likely on Saturday, but not impossible, he said.

Vegas usually sees just 4 inches of rain in an entire year. It will see around 1 to 2 inches before the weather clears up Monday morning, Darling said, but “isolated thunderstorms” could still wreak havoc.

“The chance isn’t zero” for a repeat of Thursday’s chaos, he said. “You do have the potential for stronger gusts if a thunderstorm were to collapse right on the Strip, like it did a few days ago.”

The City of Las Vegas posted on Twitter that the flooding “generally disappears quickly.”

“It’s monsoon season which brings thunderstorms and can lead to flash flooding that, while severe, generally disappears quickly,” the post said.