A 16-mile backup greets Southern California motorists returning from Las Vegas

Motorists returning to Southern California after a Thanksgiving weekend in Las Vegas had nothing but bad luck Sunday as traffic on the main route across the Nevada border backed up for 16 miles.

“Heavy traffic to California,” the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada tweeted at 11:30 a.m. “Prepare for long delays.”

The bottleneck on Interstate 15 started just south of Primm on the Nevada side of the border and added about an hour to the drive from Las Vegas to Ontario, Calif., said Carmen Perkins, a traffic engineering technician for the commission.

“That’s actually typical of Thanksgiving weekend traffic,” Perkins said, adding that a similar crawl gripped the southbound stretch of the interstate Saturday.

The commission website had urged motorists to avoid the route on both days.