- Las Vegas is in the desert, so on the rare days when it does rain, it rains a lot.
- Las Vegas uses an elaborate flood prevention system that experts say works well.
There's at least one thing that happens in Vegas that doesn't stay there: rain.
Viral videos of rapid flash flooding outside the infamous LINQ Hotel on the Las Vegas Strip appeared on social media this week, just as tourists geared up to visit the city over Labor Day weekend.
But much of that flooding happens because the LINQ Hotel was built on top of a natural waterway that drains rainwater toward Lake Mead.
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That means those rushing waters are supposed to be there and actually keep the people of Las Vegas safe, said Andrew Trelease, assistant general manager for the Clark County Regional Flood Control District.
"Everyone with a phone can get a shot of that flooding, and that gives us kind of a bad name," Trelease told Insider. "But it's really not flooding. It's really just part of the wash."
Located in the Mojave desert, Las Vegas doesn't seem like a prime candidate for flooding. But experts say flooding in desert regions is a common phenomenon, and Las Vegas has excellent infrastructure to move that water out of the city.
How Las Vegas prevents flooding
Clark County's flood control department spends $15 million each year maintaining infrastructure to keep the streets safe during storms and heavy rain.
"For the most part, we do a great job, and we're very low profile except for in some of those areas, like behind the LINQ, it is very high profile because everyone just thinks that something is wrong when it's really not," Trelease said.
Massive water basins across Clark County help catch the heavy rainfall and keep floods away from people. And because it rains so little in Las Vegas, many of these massive water basins throughout the county actually double as amenities for the public, such as parks and soccer fields, Trelease said.
Rapid rainfall and unpredictable storms in Las Vegas
The average year brings about four inches of rain to Las Vegas and the surrounding Clark County. But those few inches come quickly and with great intensity.
"When it does rain, especially in the summertime, it comes down very quickly, and we might get that four inches all in an hour or couple hours," Trelease said.
While it doesn't often rain in deserts, the rain that does fall is often heavy and difficult for the soil to absorb, said Markus Berli, an associate research professor of environmental physics at the Desert Research Institute. That means researchers need to improve how they predict these intense rainfalls.
"We are still having a hard time predicting how much it's going to rain and where it's going to rain," Berli told Insider.
But despite videos like these that show intense, roaring floods near the Las Vegas Strip, Berli said the flood infrastructure in Las Vegas is actually doing an excellent job of keeping people safe.
"The engineering solutions that are in place in Las Vegas are doing the best they can to keep the water outside of the city," Berli said.