Las Vegas floods: When the desert floods

A city in the middle of the Nevada desert, Las Vegas is dealing with an unusual creeping element this summer: torrential rains that follow a period of severe drought. Twice in a few days, water seeped into the ceilings of some of the city’s most famous casinos, even turning a car park into a river. As a result of heavy rain that fell in a very short time.

Blackjack tables fall prey to water

What weather events paved the way for Caesars Palace blackjack tables to fall prey to the water? Meteorologist Nicholas Lessard explains that the events these days in Las Vegas coincide with the monsoon period – between June 15 and September 30 – which unfolded in an exceptional way.

“The warming of the continent during the summer of 2022 led to the formation of a high pressure zone in the southwestern United States, which changed the pattern of winds from the west to that of winds from the south. These allow moisture to be transported in typically dry areas west of the Rocky Mountains.”

This activated thunderstorms, causing large amounts of stationary rain that do not move and causing large accumulations of local precipitation.

Typically, Las Vegas receives 26 mm annually. So far, this year, the city has already seen 32 millimeters of rain, more than half of it on one evening last Thursday,” says Nicolas Lessard.

Flood prey

The extremely dry land was unable to absorb water from 14 millimeters of rain during a single storm, causing flash floods, the footage of which caught the attention of the Internet.

Videos circulated on social media showed places like Caesar’s Palace and Planet Hollywood inundated as thunderstorms hit the city around 8pm local time. A few days earlier, on July 28, the city was in the grips of a deluge caused by yet another storm that unleashed devastating winds and sent water to the casinos.

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