It’s snowing at the Las Vegas Strip!
A winter storm that swept through the southwest and brought a rare snowfall to the Las Vegas Strip and the mountains above Malibu in California pounded north-central Arizona with record amounts.
The Clark County School District in southern Nevada, the nation’s fifth largest, is cancelling classes because of the weather.
In northern Arizona, schools, government offices, airports and roads were expected to be closed for a second day as the storm tapered off yesterday.
Residents in northern Arizona will be digging out from what the National Weather Service characterised as “not your average” storm.
“It is by no means over for us,” said meteorologist Mark Stubblefield in Flagstaff. “It’s still dangerous to travel.”
The snowbegan onlateWednesday and did not let up on Thursday, falling at 7.6cm to 10.2cm an hour in parts of Arizona. The National Weather Service said the rate would fall by about half yesterday.
Officials will turn their concerns to local streets that did not get plowed, overburdened roofs and freezing temperatures expected into the weekend.
Snowfall at the Flagstaff airport broke an all-time daily record set more than a century ago.
The airport had 80.3cm of snow as of Thursday evening and had to shut down its only runway earlier in the day because of zero visibility. The record set in 1915 was 78.7cm. The National Weather Service in Las Vegas tweeted in response to its counterpart in Flagstaff that the 1.27cm of snow recorded there broke its previous record of zero.
McCarran International Airport spokesman Christine Crews said she tallied about 100 flight cancellations because of snow and ice.
The storm has brought the first significant snowfall at the airport in a decade with 2cm by Thursday afternoon.
The rare snowfall prompted revellers to erect a snowman near the famous “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign.
“We expected cold, but not snow,” tourist Lila de Guerrero said after taking a photo at the sign wearing a puffer jacket and hat.
The storm also dropped snow in the Santa Monica Mountains above the Malibu coast and coated large areas of desert northeast of Los Angeles.
“No need to panic Los Angeles – the LAPD is on snow watch,” the city’s police department tweeted, along with video of a light flurry.