New York and the encompassing areas are beneath a flash flood warning, and the city and state have issued emergency declarations. Parts of Brooklyn acquired greater than 5 inches of rain by Friday morning; Central Park and Midtown Manhattan had round 4 inches, in response to the National Weather Service. Trains have been stalled or suspended. Students have been in colleges with no instant protected approach house. The downpour comes after days of rain that made the area vulnerable to flooding.

Water has been dashing down subway stairs in Brooklyn, whereas a terminal in LaGuardia Airport flooded and shuttered. Cars have been stranded and trash cans despatched floating by harmful flood waters, with one bus persevering with on its route regardless of a number of inches of water on board.

“This changing weather pattern is the result of climate change,” Rohit Aggarwala, commissioner of the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, stated throughout a press conference. “And the sad reality is that our climate is changing faster than our infrastructure can respond.”

The physics of this form of flooding are abundantly clear to atmospheric scientists: For each 1 diploma Celsius of warming, air can maintain 6 to 7 p.c extra water. That means extra moisture is obtainable for storms to dump. At the identical time, because the planet warms, it sheds extra vitality by evaporation—basically, it “sweats” extra. What goes up, must come down as rain.

All the whereas, metropolises like New York are working with infrastructure that may be centuries old. City planners thought-about their present local weather when constructing sewers and canals—the essential concept being to whisk away stormwater as shortly as doable. Today storms are fiercer, the additional precipitation is overwhelming that infrastructure, accumulating and inflicting widespread flooding.