Record rain doesn’t dampen New Year’s Eve party on Strip; 12 tons of trash cleared

Record rainfall on New Year’s Eve did not stop hundreds of thousands from welcoming 2026 with a bang.

Rainfall on Wednesday set a record for the final day of the year, according to the National Weather Service in Las Vegas. Meteorologist Brian Planz said Harry Reid International Airport received 0.32 inches of rain, breaking the previous record of 0.21 inches set in 1943.

By 6 a.m. Thursday, the midnight revelry for “America’s Party” had given way to cleanup crews. Las Vegas tourism officials previously estimated up to 345,000 visitors could come to the destination to ring in the new year.

Near The Shops at Crystals, orange cones were stacked in neat towers and street sweepers lined the curb, while farther down Las Vegas Boulevard, county workers in neon vests and hard hats hoisted metal barricades into truck beds.

Post-party crews cleared up 10 to 12 tons of trash along the Strip following the New Year’s celebration, according to an X post by Clark County. The public works department sent 25 workers to the clean-up. Another 35 were assigned to traffic management around the street closures and reopenings, a county spokesperson said in a Thursday email.

The county workers also teamed up with the Nevada Department of Transportation, clearing the last mess of 2025 with a fleet of 15 street sweepers.

Less than a tenth of an inch of rain had been recorded by the weather service as of midday, and Planz said he did not expect the Jan. 1, 1974, record of 0.43 inches to be broken.

“This is a typical winter-type storm that we can get this time of year,” Planz said. “We’ve been getting a lot of these Pacific systems coming in, with these atmospheric rivers pushing moisture into the coast, and this one just had enough to make it into our area, as well.”

By Fremont Street, a large dumpster sat outside a casino parking garage, and only a handful of city vehicles remained. Tourist Solangy Silva and her friend waited for a ride-share back to their hotel room at the Flamingo.

Silva said the two had driven in from the Bay Area the day before and chose to celebrate downtown — instead of the Strip — hoping to find “the action.”

9 arrested for DUI

On New Year’s Eve, nine people were arrested for driving while impaired in the Metropolitan Police Department’s jurisdiction. Nineteen people were arrested for other traffic-related offenses, including reckless driving, speeding and driving without a license or registration.

Hours before midnight, a pedestrian was also killed in a hit-and-run crash on Boulder Highway near Whitney Avenue, the Metropolitan Police Department said in a news release.

Another pedestrian hit-and-run crash occurred just after 1 a.m. Thursday marked the first traffic-related fatality for Metro in 2026. Investigators say the victim, a 43-year-old woman from Olathe, Kansas, was walking north on South Las Vegas Boulevard near East Russell Road in the farthest left travel lane. A 2019 Cadillac XT5 SUV, traveling in the same lane, struck the woman and fled the scene.

Police tracked down the driver, identified as Edward Dias, 77, of Pomona, California, and arrested him on a duty-to-stop charge at the scene of an accident. He is in the Clark County Detention Center and scheduled for a court appearance on Friday.

A spokesperson with the department said there were no homicides on Wednesday or Thursday morning. Representatives from local fire departments could not be immediately reached for statistics on fireworks-related injuries from the holiday.

More rainfall expected this weekend

Planz, of the weather service, noted for travelers that Friday is expected to be dry, but Saturday going into Sunday could see some showers.

“The unsettled pattern is going to continue through the weekend and probably in early next week, so people just need to be aware that they could run into some rain depending on where they’re traveling to,” he said.

Annual rainfall for 2025 was 5.41 inches — 1.23 inches above normal.

The last time there was measurable rain on New Year’s Eve was 2005, when the area received 0.01 inches, according to the weather service. There was also a trace of rain recorded on Dec. 31, 2014.

The last time we exceeded the annual rainfall total of 2025 was in 2019, when we received 6.87 inches.