LAS VEGAS · DECEMBER · THE MONTH GUIDE
Las Vegas in December averages a high of 56.9°F and a low of 39.6°F on the valley floor, with 0.45 inch of rain across the whole month. The number that reshapes a trip is neither of those. On December 15 the sun comes up at 6:43 am and is gone by 4:28 pm, which is 9 hours 46 minutes of light, so a day that starts slowly loses its outdoor half before dinner.
Most of what people book here happens indoors, and the thermometer never reaches it. The outdoor half is a different trip in December: a pool deck at 56.9°F is a photograph, while Red Rock Canyon and the Spring Mountains west of town come into range for a midday hike. Cold is not a rumor either, since an average December brings 4.6 nights at or below freezing to the airport thermometer. If the dates are still open, our month-by-month guide sets all twelve months side by side.
THE MONTH AT A GLANCE · LAS VEGAS · DECEMBER
Come for the 56.9°F afternoons and build the trip around the dark: nights average 39.6°F, 4.6 of them reach freezing, and the sun sets at 4:28 pm on December 15.
AVG HIGH 56.9°F · AVG LOW 39.6°F · 0.45 IN OF RAIN · 9H46 OF DAYLIGHT ON DEC 15
Go for: midday walking at 56.9°F, Red Rock Canyon and the Spring Mountains without summer heat, and evenings that start at 4:28 pm.
Think twice before: booking a room for the pool, or packing for the daytime figure alone: the airport thermometer falls to 32°F or below on 4.6 December nights.
Normals: NOAA NCEI 1991-2020, station USW00023169 · Daylight: sunrise-sunset.org · full sources at the end
On this page
- Las Vegas weather in December56.9°F days, 0.45 inch of rain, 1.1 wet days
- How cold it gets at night39.6°F average low and 4.6 freezing nights
- Hotel prices and booking in DecemberWhat we can price and what we could not verify
- Things to do in DecemberRed Rock Canyon, the Spring Mountains, Lake Mead
- A two-day itinerary around a 4:28 pm sunsetTwo days, hour by hour
- December vs November and JanuaryHow the three months compare
- Is December a good time to visit Las Vegas?Our verdict, and who should move the dates
- Another month for Las VegasThe twelve-month view
Every figure here with a degree sign comes from one instrument: the NOAA station at Las Vegas McCarran Airport, on the valley floor, 1991-2020 normals. The desert around the city and the Spring Mountains above it both run colder after dark than the Strip does, so a trailhead reading will sit below the numbers below, especially at dawn.
Las Vegas weather in December: average highs, lows and rain days
| Measure | December normal at the airport station |
|---|---|
| Average high | 56.9°F |
| Average low | 39.6°F |
| Total precipitation | 0.45 in |
| Days with 0.10 in or more | 1.1 |
| Days with 1 in or more | 0.1 |
| Nights at 32°F or below | 4.6 |
| Days with 0.1 in of snow or more | 0.1 |
| Daylight on Dec 15 | 9h 46m (6:43 am to 4:28 pm) |
Those figures come from NOAA NCEI’s 1991-2020 monthly normals for station USW00023169. That provenance matters, because a station record and a grid-cell reanalysis are two different products, and they disagree most often on the night figure. This one is a real thermometer sitting on the valley floor at the airport, and it gives December an average high of 56.9°F, an average low of 39.6°F and 0.45 inch of precipitation.
Rain is rare enough to plan around rather than against. An average December collects at least a tenth of an inch on 1.1 days, and a soaking of an inch or more shows up at 0.1 days, which works out to roughly one December in ten. Spread across a seven-night stay, the wet-day count comes to about a quarter of a day. The practical form of that is a gray morning with the ridges hidden, not a week of umbrellas.
Day and night sit 17.3°F apart, and the cold end arrives at the hour visitors are outside. The sun is down at 4:28 pm, and the walk between hotels, the taxi line and the queue for a table all happen after that. Pack for two temperatures on the same day: one shirt-sleeve layer for 1 pm, one real jacket for 9 pm, and something for wind, which these normals do not measure.
Sunrise on December 15 falls at 6:43 am and sunset at 4:28 pm in Pacific Standard Time, converted from the UTC times published by sunrise-sunset.org: 9 hours 46 minutes of daylight. Useful light on a canyon road is gone before 5 pm, so any drive out of the valley is a morning decision. A 7 pm dinner reservation sits two and a half hours into the dark.
How warm is Las Vegas in December, and how cold does it get at night?
The two headline numbers stand 17.3°F apart: 56.9°F by day, 39.6°F by night. That spread is tighter than November’s 19.8°F and January’s 18.0°F on the same station and the same 1991-2020 period. December afternoons stay closer to the morning reading than in either neighboring month.
At 7 am the rental car is parked in air near 39.6°F and the windshield may need a minute. By 1 pm, in the sun, a long-sleeve shirt usually covers it, and the jacket becomes luggage until about half past four. Packing for the daytime figure alone leaves the whole evening uncovered, and the evening is when a Las Vegas trip does most of its walking.
An average December puts 4.6 nights at or below 32°F on that airport thermometer. NOAA’s own caveat applies with force here: the open desert around the city and the Spring Mountains above it both run colder at night than the valley floor, so a dawn start at elevation should treat 39.6°F as the warm case rather than the expected one.
How busy is Las Vegas in December, and what does a room cost?
We found no occupancy series and no monthly room-rate data for Las Vegas, so we crown no month cheap and no month expensive. What is not in dispute is the shape of the calendar: December 25 and December 31 fall on fixed dates every year, and both sit inside the final week and a half of the month, which is also when school vacations overlap them.
A precise “book eleven weeks ahead” would be our invention, not a source’s. The defensible version: if your nights touch December 25 or December 31, lock the room and the rental car at the moment you book the flight, and read the cancellation line before confirming. The first two weeks of the month carry no fixed holiday, and there is much less reason to commit early to them.
We could not verify the Clark County lodging-tax rate, so no percentage appears here. Two lines on the reservation still deserve a second look: the nightly rate shown on the search page, and the total after tax and any resort fee. Properties set those fees individually, and we did not verify them property by property.
If one line of the budget deserves more money in December, make it the rental car rather than the room category. Usable light stops at 4:28 pm, and everything a 56.9°F afternoon is good for sits beyond walking distance of the Strip: Red Rock Canyon, the Spring Mountains, the Lake Mead shoreline. A bigger room adds nothing to a day that has to be over by half past four.
Things to do in Las Vegas in December: Red Rock Canyon, the Spring Mountains and the Strip
December is the month when the outdoor half of the trip is the easy half. An afternoon of open desert at 56.9°F asks for water, a hat and nothing more elaborate. The solstice adds the other half of the bargain: the lit city is fully visible from about half past four, which gives a long evening to the people who came for exactly that and a very short window to the people who did not.
The places that make the case are Red Rock Canyon west of town, Mount Charleston and the rest of the Spring Mountains above it, the Lake Mead shoreline east, and the walkable blocks of the Strip and downtown. We could not verify current entry fees, timed-entry rules or gate hours for any of them, so we quote none. Check the managing agency the week you go, and check it again the morning you drive.
The rock at Red Rock is the same rock in July. What the month moves is the air above it, from summer numbers no reader needs explained to a 56.9°F average, and that gap is the entire season. Work it the other way at altitude: with 4.6 freezing nights in the valley and colder ground higher up, shaded trails can hold morning ice, and we could not verify current trail or road conditions in the Spring Mountains.
The free item December supplies is the thermometer itself: a walk from one end of the Strip to the other at noon, or an hour on the open-air blocks downtown after dark, costs only the jacket you brought for 39.6°F. We could not verify which museums or attractions waive admission at this time of year, so we name none.
Las Vegas in December: a two-day itinerary
Day one goes west. Breakfast indoors while the valley is still near 39.6°F, wheels rolling by 8:30, boots on the ground at Red Rock Canyon from about 10 to 2, which is the warmest stretch of a 56.9°F day. Back in the valley by 3:30, since the light is gone at 4:28. The rest of the day belongs to the indoor city: dinner at 7, a show after it, and the Strip walk home in the jacket.
Day two stays in the valley: a late breakfast, midday on foot along the Strip while the air is at its best, downtown through the afternoon, dinner before a 7 pm curtain. If the gray morning turns up, and it turns up on roughly 1.1 days a month, swap the mileage for museums and casinos and move the drive west to day three. After any storm, check the state highway agency before pointing the car at Mount Charleston.
Las Vegas in December vs November and January
| Measure | November | December | January |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average high | 67.1°F | 56.9°F | 58.5°F |
| Average low | 47.3°F | 39.6°F | 40.5°F |
| Precipitation | 0.30 in | 0.45 in | 0.56 in |
| Days with 0.10 in or more | 0.7 | 1.1 | 1.6 |
November runs 10.2°F warmer by day than December (67.1°F against 56.9°F) and 7.7°F warmer at night, on the same station and the same 1991-2020 period. January is the near twin, 58.5°F and 40.5°F, within two degrees on both counts, but wetter: 0.56 inch and 1.6 wet days against December’s 0.45 inch and 1.1. No water temperature belongs in this table. The nearest swimming is Lake Mead, and we could not verify its December readings.
Shift four weeks back to November and you gain the warmest afternoons and the driest month of the three, at 0.30 inch and 0.7 wet days, while giving up the long dark evenings if the lit city is what you came for. Shift four weeks forward to January and 1.6°F on the daytime average costs 0.11 inch more rain and half a wet day more.
Is December a good time to visit Las Vegas?
Yes for anyone whose Las Vegas is half outdoors. At 56.9°F a canyon trail and a mile of the Strip at noon are both comfortable, and 1.1 wet days a month rarely rearranges a week. No for anyone who booked the room for the pool, and no for anyone who wants the outdoor day to run past 4:28 pm, because in December it simply does not.
If the answer is no, the month to move to is November: 10.2°F warmer by day, drier at 0.30 inch, with 0.7 days collecting a tenth of an inch. Our November page runs those numbers in full. January returns only 1.6°F on the daytime average and arrives with 0.11 inch more rain than December.
What no other month hands you is the solstice: the shortest days of the year, a 4:28 pm sunset on the 15th, and a lit skyline that has already been on for two and a half hours by the time you sit down to dinner.
The last word
One figure we held back: an average December records 0.1 days with a tenth of an inch of snow or more at the airport, which is about one December in ten with something white on the valley floor, and we could not verify snowfall normals for the stations up in the Spring Mountains. Nobody should plan a vacation around that. Plan it around the 10 am to 3 pm window, put the rental car ahead of the room upgrade in the budget, and book dinner for after six.
Sources & data for this guide
- December normals: high 56.9°F, low 39.6°F, 0.45 in · NOAA NCEI monthly normals 1991-2020, station USW00023169, Las Vegas McCarran Airport · checked Sep 15, 2026
- Day counts: 1.1 days at 0.10 in or more, 0.1 day at 1 in or more, 4.6 nights at 32°F or below, 0.1 day with 0.1 in of snow or more · same NOAA NCEI normals · checked Sep 15, 2026
- November and January normals used in the comparison table · same NOAA NCEI station and period · checked Sep 15, 2026
- Daylight of 9h 46m, sunrise 6:43 am and sunset 4:28 pm on December 15 · sunrise-sunset.org, converted from UTC to Pacific Standard Time · checked Sep 15, 2026
- Editorial reserve: we found no occupancy or monthly room-rate series for Las Vegas and could not verify the Clark County lodging-tax rate, so no price ranking and no percentage appear. Fees, gate hours and winter road conditions for Red Rock Canyon, the Spring Mountains and Lake Mead were not verified and are not quoted · check the managing agency before you drive.