New York Broke A Record Last Week

The weather can be a little unpredictable in New York State, and over the weekend, one city got hit harder than most. 

The metropolitan area of New York City was “stunned and swamped,” according to NPR reports, following a massive rainfall that left residents scrambling as a result of flooding. 

It was one of New York’s wettest days in decades, even though other parts of the state, like in Buffalo, New York, experienced non-stereotypical warm days ahead of the new month. 

About 8.65 inches of rain had fallen at the John F. Kennedy Airport by Friday evening, which broke the previous record for September rainfall in New York City. The old record was set during Hurricane Donna in 1960, according to the National Weather Service. 

And it has been called the “wettest calendar day on record” since 1948 at the JFK Airport. 

As a result of the rain, New York City had to cope with some pretty serious repercussions, including knocked out several subway and commuter rail lines, stranded drivers on highway, flooded basements, shuttered a terminal at LaGuardia Airport, and other damages. 

One resident of New York City told NPR that the rain was so bad that it looked “like a lake, like an ocean.”  

Governor Kathy Hochul declared a state of emergency during the rainfall, but it didn’t keep people at home: most schools were still open and so were many local businesses, so residents went to work but they weren’t sure if they would be able to safely get home. 

With the record-breaking rain, it became the second place for the wettest September since 1882, missing the record by just over 2 inches.