Hurricane Ida is not done yet, not by a long shot. As predicted, it is barreling through the Northeast today, on a ferocious path through PHI, NJ, NYC, CT and BOS, spawning tornadoes and dumping copious amounts of rain in heavily populated areas. The NWS issued a first ever Flash Flood Emergency for NYC and Northeast NJ.
Flash flood and tornado warnings are all over the place.
Meteorologists are shaking their heads in disbelief -
3.15 inches of rain in an hour in NYC -
Record rainfall in many areas —
More insane records —
Some disheartening scenes from NYC and suburbs —
The subway has been shut down —
We can see why —
Imagine if this was your home -
Tornadoes in places that rarely experience them -
It is winding down in NYC and metro area, but CT, RI and MA are next. Hopefully, Ida will lose its rage a bit and have mercy on the folks in its path.
We can watch, we can compute, we can predict, but how do we prepare for this, without a concerted effort to tackle Climate Change?
Climate Change of course has its fingerprints all over this, as Ida picked up strength and a lot of moisture from the extra warm waters of the Gulf.
NYC and the Northeast had plenty of advanced warning, but how does the interior of the Northeast prepare for an event like this? The ground in the northeast is already soaked from Tropical Storm Henri 10 days ago, preparing the region for extreme flooding.
With Louisiana and NOLA struggling with flooding and power outages, the west on fire and many parts of the world dealing with drought, fires and flooding, perhaps 2021 will open a few more eyes to the fact that global warming is real and we are far from prepared to handle the looming Climate Crisis.
To be clear, an individual hurricane or flooding event or wildfire does not implicate Climate Change. But the multi-decade record and trend does. Also, Climate Change is not just a matter of statistics; there is science behind it. Scientists can compute the global temperature change due to increased green-house gases, compute the effects on weather, wind, sea levels and ocean currents, compute the effect on storms, rainfall and drought, and analyse the intensity of flooding and wildfires. The IPCC 2021 report firmly established the Physical Science Basis of Climate Change. Here is a synopsis of what it said of weather changes in store for the U.S. -
The effects of Climate Change on New York have been analyzed years ago -
The study also found that very, very large storms that aren’t so intense in terms of sheer wind speed, but nevertheless drive very large surges, were also more likely in the current era. Storms like Sandy, that is.
“I think the punchline is, we made Sandy much more likely already,” says Mann. “We’re already dealing with greatly elevated risk. We’re not just talking about the future. Climate change is already costing us dearly, but it’ll be a whole lot worse if we do nothing about it.”
Our thoughts and prayers for NJ, NY, CT and MA, as it will be a long and terrifying night. And let’s keep educating our friends and family about Climate Change.
Updates
The death toll around NYC stands at 9 14 22. There are power outages for about 200K customers. The repair bill will be staggering, again.
Amtrak service is down.
In PA, the Schuylkill river is overflowing its banks and causing major flooding in PHI and surrounding areas. The Schuylkill River in Philly is at 16 ft, beating the previous record by more than 4 ft.
Major closures of water-logged highways -