LAS VEGAS – Energy is swirling in Las Vegas right now, and it’s not the love affair between Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift leaving NFL fans soaked with excitement ahead of Super Bowl weekend.
There are chances of scattered showers Wednesday due to the atmospheric river moisture plume that caused severe weather in California and brought rain and snow showers to southern Nevada on Tuesday. Another round of heavy rain is expected to hit the region Thursday morning.
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Sin City is expected to experience the heaviest rainfall late Wednesday night through Thursday morning, according to the FOX Forecast Center.
Las Vegas received 0.37 inches of rain at Harry Reid International Airport on Monday, setting a daily rainfall record.
Are you heading to Las Vegas for the Super Bowl and unsure what to expect? Huddle up! Here’s your FOX Weather game plan.
Since Super Bowl week kicked off Monday, the average high temperature in Las Vegas has been colder than Minneapolis, which hosted the Super Bowl in 2018.
Visiting football fans can expect some sunshine in Las Vegas during their stay, but high temperatures will only reach the mid-50s, with overnight lows dropping to the mid- to upper 30s over the weekend.
“Super Bowl weekend has always been a large visitor weekend for Las Vegas regardless of where the game has been held,” Brendan Bussmann, director of government affairs for Las Vegas-based Global Market Advisors, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
According to research firm Applied Analysis, the Super Bowl in 2019 brought 310,000 visitors to Las Vegas, which resulted in an economic impact of $425 million, the newspaper reported.
Bussmann predicts that the massive number of people expected to arrive in Las Vegas for the Super Bowl will make it one of the busiest weekends on record for the city.
“It may end up being a record-breaking crowd of Super Bowl attendees to a destination,” he added.
For NFL fans planning to explore other areas of Clark County, Nevada, it’s important to note that avalanches are a potential risk to the north of Las Vegas.
An avalanche was reported Monday about 35 miles northwest of Las Vegas at the Lee Canyon Ski and Snowboard Resort, and four people were initially reported missing but were later found. Lee Canyon was closed due to extreme winter weather conditions Tuesday and Wednesday.
A Winter Storm Warning is in effect for the Spring Mountains, including Lee Canyon, from 10 p.m. PST Wednesday to 4 p.m. PST Thursday. Between 5 and 15 inches of snow is expected, along with wind gusts to 40 mph.
“Increased snowfall will create very dangerous avalanche conditions, hazardous to anyone near deep and unstable snowpack,” the National Weather Service said in the Winter Storm Warning.
As for the players, the San Francisco 49ers will begin practicing Wednesday at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Sod was placed over the campus’s turf field that will be used this week for practice sessions, the Associated Press reported. The club had some initial concerns about the field’s condition being too soft, but NFL inspectors cleared it for safety.
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“We’re not worried about it at all,” coach Kyle Shanahan told reporters at media night Monday in Las Vegas. “It is what it is. We’re here, and we won’t change anything.”
The field has been improving every day since the team initially looked at it last week, Shanahan added.
As for the Kansas City Chiefs, the designated home team for the game, they get to practice at the Las Vegas Raiders facility in nearby Henderson.
Super Bowl LVIII kickoff happens at 3:30 p.m. local time in Las Vegas (6:30 p.m. EST) on Sunday.