Friday’s flooding from torrential, record-setting rainfall across New York City was the latest in a series of damaging storms to strike in recent years.
A sure sign of a changing climate, the Big Apple has been battered every year since 2020 by powerful storms that have blown through town and wrought havoc along the way — washing out streets, paralyzing the subway system, knocking out power and even killing people trapped in basement apartments within low-lying areas.
Here’s just some of the recent extreme weather events to hit New York City since 2020:
Tropical Storm Fay, July 2020
Amid the summer of the COVID-19 pandemic, Fay struck New York City with a glancing blow after making landfall in Atlantic City. New Yorkers experienced a day of heavy rain and wind, but most parts of the Big Apple got about 2.5 inches of rain. Low-lying areas, however, experienced flooding conditions such as Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, a short distance from the Gowanus Canal.
Tropical Storm Isaias, August 2020
Just a few weeks later and further down the National Hurricane Center’s alphabet, Isaias blew through town like a freight train. Packing a bigger punch than Fay, high winds caused widespread power outages during the event; Con Edison reported that some 93,000 customers lost electricity at the height of the storm. Numerous trees around the city were also toppled. Isaias was not much of a rainmaker for New York, but areas of Pennsylvania and New Jersey further west suffered significant flooding from the storm.
Tropical Storm Henri, August 2021
About a year later, New York City saw the first of two historic storms that hit in about a week’s time. Henri stayed well off the Long Island coast on Aug. 21 of that year, but with New York City being on the western side of the storm, the Big Apple bore a major soaking. Central Park reported an astonishing 7.16 inches of rain as of Aug. 22; the storm was so severe that it washed out the “We Love NYC” concert on the Great Lawn marking the post-pandemic reopening of the city. But Brooklyn got the biggest beating, with 7.86 inches of rain from Henri. The Central Park rainfall shattered generations-old records, but it took less than two weeks for that record to be broken.
Remnants of Hurricane Ida, September 2021
Ida had caused significant damage as a Category 3 hurricane in Louisiana before weakening into a post-tropical system as it churned across the Southeast toward the Big Apple. When Ida’s remnants arrived in New York on the night of Sept. 1, nothing seemed post-tropical about it. The city experienced rainfall of biblical proportions, falling at such an extreme rate that the National Weather Service issued the first flash flood emergency in the city’s history. The damage Ida wrought only became clearly visible the next morning after the storms faded away, and the storm proved to be the deadliest New York had seen since Superstorm Sandy in 2012. Thirteen New Yorkers had died, most of them residents living in basement apartments that flooded so quickly that they had no time to escape. President Joe Biden declared a federal disaster, and visited storm-battered Queens while pledging the government’s support in the rebuilding effort.
Winter Storm Elliot, December 2022
Right before Christmas, a winter storm named Elliot pummeled the New York City area, bring heavy rain but also coastal flooding to low-lying areas such as the Rockaways in Queens. Areas near Jamaica Bay were inundated with three feet of water, and efforts to clean up from the storm were complicated by a bitter cold that set in right after Elliot left town. Faulty bulkheads along the bay were to blame for the Rockaway flooding, and Governor Kathy Hochul pledged to work with the federal government to have the system repaired.
Tropical Storm Ophelia, September 2023
Just a week ago, Ophelia brought a slow, yet soaking rain to the Big Apple. For a four-day stretch between Sept. 23-27, the city saw alternating gloomy skies and periods of rainfall, with about 3 inches of rain falling across the city. But Ophelia left the water-logged ground vulnerable to the flash flooding experienced Friday across the city.
