Hottest month ever: July sets all-time Las Vegas heat record

July 2023 is the hottest month in Las Vegas weather history, with an average daily temperature of 97.3 degrees.

That is more than a degree hotter than the previous hottest July in 2010, when the average temperature was 96.2, according to the Las Vegas office of the National Weather Service.

“It (July) is going to be the hottest month in the 87 years that we have had reliable weather records,” meteorologist Clay Morgan said Monday.

A stormy Monday evening dropped the day’s low to 79, which lowered the average daily temperature for the month from an expected 97.5 to 97.3, meteorologist Brian Planz said.

The July record comes as the weather service tweeted over the weekend that the 14 days ending Saturday were the hottest two weeks in Las Vegas history, with a daily average temperature of 100.7. The average high for the two weeks was 112.3, and the average low was 89.1.

Earlier this month Harry Reid International Airport recorded 110 or higher for 10 consecutive days, equal to a 1962 record. The high finished at 109 on the 11th day, just shy of setting a new record.

Phoenix ended its record 31-day, 110-degree heat streak Monday, after the high reached only 108 degrees, the weather service said.

While local weather records are less than 100 years old, other records and data indicate that this July will go down as the hottest month in thousands of centuries, according to Scientific American.

“Because July is climatologically the hottest month of the year for the Earth as a whole, that makes July 2023 the hottest month since records have been kept and likely the hottest in 120,000 years, based on evidence of past temperatures found in ancient sediments and layers of ice, as well as on other paleoclimate records,” the magazine reported.

As for Las Vegas, the early August forecast is for above normal heat after possible showers or storms through Wednesday night.

A shower dropped .012 of an inch at the airport early Tuesday and more showers or storms are possible later in the day.

“There’s a decent chance of showers around the valley or even into the valley,” Planz said.

A Tuesday high around 99 is expected.

The heat is forecast to resume Wednesday.

A Thursday high of 105 is forecast, escalating toward 109 by Sunday.

The weather service said in a post Monday that because of the lack of dense vegetation between Mojave National Preserve, where the York fire is burning, and Las Vegas, the fire is unlikely to reach Las Vegas.

Monday storms

A storm developed over Sloan Canyon National Conservation Area on Monday, and brought some rain to Henderson in the afternoon.

Mount Charleston and the Inspirada development in Henderson each recorded 0.04 of an inch of rain as of Monday afternoon, according to the Clark County Regional Flood Control District.

Contact Marvin Clemons at mclemons@reviewjournal.com. Follow @Marv_in_Vegas on Twitter.