Torrential downpours across north-eastern parts of the US caused significant flooding and disruption last Friday. New York City was particularly badly affected, with flash flooding reported across many of the city’s subway stations and streets. One of the three terminals at LaGuardia airport was forced to close temporarily, and a sea lion briefly escaped from its enclosure at the Central Park zoo. The city’s governor, Kathy Hochul, declared a state of emergency, describing the situation as “life-threatening”, with millions of people put under flood watches and flash-flood warnings. No deaths or injuries have been reported.
A number of locations reported new record daily rainfall totals, with 226mm recorded at JFK airport and 150mm in Central Park since last Thursday. It was the wettest day ever recorded at JFK airport, with records dating back to 1948. The National Weather Service also confirmed that it had been the wettest September for New York City in 140 years.
Switzerland’s glaciers experienced their second worst melt rate this year, after record losses last year. In the last two years alone, the glaciers have lost an incredible 10% in volume, according to the Swiss Glacier Monitoring Network, which has been monitoring some of the glaciers since 1914. This is the same as the volume lost between 1960 and 1990. The elevation at which precipitation freezes also reached a record overnight high, observed at 5,289 metres, which is several hundred meters higher than any mountain in the Alps.
The dramatic losses are the result of reduced snowfall during the winter months and consecutive warm summers. Researchers say that without reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, glaciers across the Alps may disappear completely by the end of the century. The glaciers play an important role in helping to irrigate crops in the summer, and also help in cooling nuclear power stations.
Antarctic sea ice reached its annual maximum extent earlier in September. At 16.96m sq km, it is the lowest sea ice maximum witnessed since satellite observations started in 1979. The maximum extent occurred on 10 September, 13 days earlier than the 1981-2010 average. Warmer water in the near-surface layer of the ocean is thought to be responsible for lower than normal sea ice extent around the continent since 2016.
