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Las Vegas, NV UV Index Today

Modelled for · GMT-7

What is the UV index in Las Vegas right now?

5 Moderate

EPA suggests shade around midday, a hat and sunglasses.

Today's peak is 8.6 (Very High) at about 12pm local time.

When is UV strongest in Las Vegas today?

UV in Las Vegas peaks at 8.6 (Very High) around 12pm local time (GMT-7). It stays at 6 or above — the high band — for 4 hours, roughly 11am to 3pm. UV is 3 or above for 6 hours.

Local time, midnight to midnight. Bar colour is the EPA UV band, never restyled.

Las Vegas today, in numbers

Latitude
36.2°N — 81 of 121 from the north
Today's peak
8.6 (Very High) — 15 of 121 nationally
Peak arrives
12pm local (GMT-7)
At or above 6
4 hours, 11am to 3pm
At or above 3
6 hours, 10am to 4pm

The window from 11am to 3pm is the practical answer for Las Vegas today. Nationally today the spread runs 11.4 in Hilo (20°N) to 1.3 in Fargo (47°N). Why latitude and the clock decide this →

The driest weeks are the highest sun

Normal precipitation in Las Vegas is 0.07 inches in May and 0.04 inches in June. Those are the weeks the sun stands highest in the year, and they are effectively rainless. For most of that stretch the clear-sky figure and the figure a person outdoors would actually meet are the same number. In most American cities a published index is a ceiling that cloud pulls down on a majority of days. Through late spring here it is closer to a description.

That ends on a date. Monsoon moisture reaches southern Nevada from around the start of July, and normal rainfall goes from 0.04 inches in June to 0.38 in July. It arrives as scattered convection rather than as a deck, which is why one part of the valley can lose an afternoon to a single cell while a few miles away nothing happens at all.

The mountains ringing the basin are genuinely high. Charleston Peak in the Spring Mountains reaches 11,916 feet and Hayford Peak in the Sheep Range 9,912. They stand far enough back from the built-up floor that they only clip the sun near sunrise and sunset, when the index is already at the bottom of its scale. The floor itself sits near 2,000 feet, low by Mountain West standards.

Nearest metros we model

UV changes with latitude, not with a city boundary, so a neighbour a hundred miles north reads differently for a reason.

Riverside, CA 200 mi · 34.0°N peak 9.4 Bakersfield, CA 224 mi · 35.4°N peak 8.3 Anaheim, CA 225 mi · 33.8°N peak 8.8

What does Las Vegas’s UV index mean today?

5 is Moderate. EPA suggests shade around midday, a hat and sunglasses. Today Las Vegas also reaches Very High at its peak — a different band from the one it is in right now, which is why the hour matters as much as the day.

The scale is open-ended: 11 is where the named bands stop, not the maximum. All five bands, with the EPA guidance for each →

Modelled, not measured

The UV figures for Las Vegas are computed by the Copernicus atmosphere model, not read off an instrument here — unlike the AQI on our air-quality pages, which comes from a regulatory monitor. Cloud is where a UV model is weakest. What that means in practice →

Questions about UV in Las Vegas

What is the UV index in Las Vegas today?

5 right now (Moderate), peaking at 8.6 around 12pm local time. UV stays at 6 or above for 4 hours, from about 11am to 3pm. This is a modelled value, not a ground measurement.

When is UV strongest in Las Vegas today?

Around 12pm local time (GMT-7), not at noon — solar noon drifts across a timezone and daylight saving moves it later on the clock.

Is this measured or modelled?

Modelled. The figures come from the Copernicus atmosphere model via Open-Meteo, unlike the AQI on our air-quality pages, which is read from an EPA regulatory monitor. Cloud cover is where a UV model is weakest.

Las Vegas air qualityThe AQI, from a regulatory monitor rather than a model UV across the USWhere Las Vegas sits against every metro we track

Updated