Thread by @RyanMaue

Putting on my historian hat 🎩

Turns out the "extreme rainfall" records being reported by NY Times might be neglecting paper records in existence prior especially prior to the 1940s.

e.g. August 12, 1926: 3.24"
timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1…

"STORM RECORDS EXCEEDED" August 12, 1926

"The heavy downpour ... let loose upon the city and which probably broke all records for a similar period ... flooded subways, railroad tunnels, basements and streets ..."

"...bolts of lighting played a tattoo upon church steeples" (?)

July 28, 1913 RECORD RAINFALL FLOODS THE CITY

Sewer overflow swamps hotels

BACK GUSH FROM DRAINS 😲

Same infrastructure as today,. not built to withstand weather from 108-years ago 👇

Property Owners to Demand Relief from Inadequate Sewers

timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1…

"From 4 o'clock to 4:12 more rain fell than had fallen in any other twelve minutes known to the Weather Bureau. The storm completely flooded and blocked the sewer system in many sections."

"The result was many inundated sub-basements, in which the water stood six feed deep"

August 28, 1983
"Thunderstorms dropped more than 2" of rain on the metropolitan area in a little more than an hour yesterday evening, stopping subway service on many lines and causing widespread flooding and extensive delays for weekend travelers on the ground and in the air."

Link to August 29, 1983 NY Times describing the deluge.

timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1…

Hopefully paper records exist of weather observations (prior to digitization) that go back to 19th Century in NYC. It would be useful to compare recent extreme rains from Henri and Ida w/historical deluges reported in NY Times.

Do hourly precision records exist > 100 years ago?

I wish we had similar high-resolution radar & model based precipitation analysis in e.g. 1926 as we do today. But, w/rankings of heaviest 1-hour rainfall, hard to imagine Hurricane Ida (2021) was exceeded historically.

Everything came together perfectly for record inundation.

It's truly a pleasure reading newspaper articles about extreme weather -- hurricanes, floods, snowstorms -- from 50-100 years ago. The descriptions usually focus on individual experiences, sometimes with a comedic slant.

Tuesday, March 13, 1888 "Great Blizzard"

THE WORST STORM THE CITY HAS EVER KNOWN.
BUSINESS AND TRAVEL COMPLETELY SUSPENDED. NEW-YORK HELPLESS IN A TORNADO OF WIND AND SNOW WHICH PARALYZED ALL INDUSTRY, ISOLATED THE CITY FROM THE REST OF THE COUNTRY, CAUSED MANY ACCIDENTS AND GREAT DISCOMFORT

timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1…

Where'd I get my history degree? Michigan #GoBlue lsa.umich.edu/history

Atmospheric Science or meteorology was just a hobby until I showed up to grad school, then it got serious.

I could double-major in 4-years b/c I showed up w/my math and foreign language credits in the bag. Had to take 2 summer sessions to bang out some electives, but I spent almost all my time w/liberals arts focus believing I was headed to law school. But, got sidetracked ...

... took intro meteorology class from a popular professor at Michigan who co-founded the Weather Underground. And then started down the Atmospheric Science degree track. Yet, I spent the majority of my time, 20-years ago, studying history. Combining the two is so relaxing.

And, of course I studied Witchcraft my senior year of college. You can't be a good weather forecaster without it. 🪄🧙‍♀️