Miraculously, No Deaths So Far In Epic New York Flooding

Screen grab from a news video showing Park Slope,
Brooklyn under water Friday. 

 Social media was blasting with incredible videos Friday of streets in and around New York City deep under water, with cars floating around, waterfalls pouring into basements and subways stations in one of the worst floods in the region's history. 

Seven to nine  inches of rain fell in some of the hardest hit areas in Brooklyn, Queens and Nassau County, Long Island, which is adjacent to Queens. 

So far, I've heard of no deaths from this storm. Which is awesome, since the storm hit such a populated area.  A populated area, by the way, that has lots of basement apartments. Those are especially dangerous in severe flash floods. 

In just slightly worse flooding with Hurricane Ida in 2021, when some 40 people died in and around New York City. 

This time, according to the Washington Post, people in six basement apartments were rescued, along with numerous motorist in inundated cars and trucks.  

This storm is being compared to Ida, but the worst of it covered a smaller area than that earlier storm from 2021. Drenching rains and some flooding hit from New Jersey to Massachusetts Friday. But the heaviest rain fell in a narrow band through eastern New York City, parts of the lower Hudson Valley and on into Fairfield County, Connecticut.

Here's why: A wet storm was off the coast. The storm wasn't tropical, but part of its energy came from the remains of Tropical Storm Ophelia, which dissipated last week off the coast. A weather front of sort, called an inverted trough, for much of the day extended northwestward from the storm through eastern New York City and western Long Island. 

Winds on the Atlantic Ocean side of this line roared in from the southeast, carrying boatloads of moisture. Winds on the west side of this trough came from the southwest, That meant lots of air collided along this sort of semi-weather front. 

When air converges like this, it has nowhere to go but up.  If you have lots of rising air and a ton of moisture in the air, all that moisture condenses into raindrops as the air rises. So you get the narrow band of torrential rains you saw Friday. 

You can see the variability of the rain due to this setup.  JFK Airport in Queens saw 8.65 inches of rain, its wettest day on record.  Central Park, just 16 miles to the northwest, had a very impressive but still much less 5.8 inches. Staten Island only had two to three inches of rain. 

Climate change is making extreme rains like Friday's downpours more likely.  The New York City drainage system, like in many cities, is designed for 20th century conditions, when such downpours were less likely. 

"The sad reality is our climate is changing faster than our infrastructure can respond," said Rohit Aggarwala, New York City's chief climate officer, according to the Washington Post.

You can see a trend: Including Friday, in Central Park, where records go back to around 1870,  four of the top seven wettest days on record have occurred since 2007.

Friday's storm is departing. Other than some minor coastal flooding from a combination of gusty east winds,  a seasonal King Tide, combined with higher sea levels from climate change, it's pretty much over.

The storm, as we know, had practically no effect in Vermont, thank goodness. It produced a rather rainy, dark and dank day in southern Vermont. Bennington picked up nearly a half inch of rain, and sprinkles reached as far north as Montpelier. 

Burlington had no rain, its 10th day in a row free of precipitation. No rain is expected at least through Wednesday.