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New York Today

N.Y. Today: Yes, the Weather Has Been Crazy Rainy

By Azi Paybarah
Jan. 3, 2019



It’s Thursday. A dog on the tracks on the Williamsburg Bridge delayed subways for over an hour last night.

Alternate-side parking: in effect till Jan. 21.
It’s getting harder to walk between the raindrops.CreditSpencer Platt/Getty Images


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It’s getting harder to walk between the raindrops.CreditSpencer Platt/Getty Images

Maybe we should call it the Soggy Apple. New York City just experienced its fourth-wettest year on record.

In 2018, 65.55 inches of precipitation fell in Central Park, according to the National Weather Service. That’s more than 15 inches, or 31 percent, above normal.

This is part of a broader pattern caused by global warming. The Northeast is getting wetter; the Pacific Northwest is getting drier; and the South is getting hotter.

Out of the 149 years of weather data collected at Central Park, the 10 wettest have all happened since 1972.

To put it another way: New York City’s wettest years all occurred since “The Godfather” hit movie theaters.

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Weren’t around for that movie? Try this: five of New York City’s 10 wettest years have taken place since 2003 — when the first “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie was on the big screen.

Not that excess wetness is a consistent phenomenon — the three years before 2018 were all unusually dry. But the overall trend is real.

How does global warming fit in? Warmer air can hold more moisture. And if that warmer air is holding more moisture, it can drop more moisture.