Weather in Las Vegas in December

A good month. December works. It is not the peak, but nothing about it fights you. Highs sit at 14.6 °C and the day is short; this is an indoors-with-excursions month, not an outdoors-all-day one.

December ranks 7 of 12 in Las Vegas: past the worst of the year but short of April, which is the month to book if the dates are open.

Rain falls on only 3 days, so an itinerary with no wet-weather fallback is a reasonable risk. Layers, and a genuinely waterproof outer — at 14.6 °C the difference between a good day and a miserable one is entirely down to what you are wearing.

What the averages hide

Averages flatten a month, and this one hides a few things: 6 nights fall below freezing. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest December day reached 24.4 °C and the coldest night fell to -4.6 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 35 mm — roughly 194% of the month's rain in one day.

This is the volatile part. December rainfall has ranged from 0 mm to 93 mm across the twenty years measured — a 93 mm spread around an average of 18 mm. The average is real but almost no individual December looks like it, so treat the figure as the middle of a wide range rather than a forecast.

Wind is light at 8.3 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity is unremarkable at 46%.

How December sits in the year

This is a turning point in the year — November and January sit on opposite sides of it, so the month contains the change rather than following it.

Daylight in December

December sits at the dark end of Las Vegas's year — 9.7 hours of daylight against 14.6 at midsummer, holding steady all month. Sightseeing days are genuinely shorter, and an itinerary built for summer will not fit.

An inland climate

With no coast nearby, the year swings a fair way — 38.7 °C between the warmest afternoons and the coldest nights, wider than any coastal city at this latitude would manage.

How busy it gets

Peak season. Expect the highest prices of the year and to be booking well ahead.

Crowd levels are estimated from climate desirability and school-holiday calendars, not from visitor numbers.

December in Las Vegas versus nearby

If Las Vegas is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Riverside is a better bet in December — 5.2 °C warmer, 3 days more rain. Sedona is the weaker option in December — 3 °C cooler, 3 days more rain.

So: December is a compromise. April is 20 points better and is what Las Vegas is actually like at its best — worth moving the trip for if that is possible, and worth adjusting expectations for if it is not.

Every month in Las Vegas

See all twelve months in Las Vegas, or where else to go in December.