September 4, 2021 - Ida Floods the East Coast

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Ida on the East Coast
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The strength of hurricane winds often attract the most attention, but
meteorologists warn that water is the most dangerous part of a tropical
cyclone. Ida is a good example.

Though Ida’s winds weakened after making landfall in Louisiana, the
storm system upended daily life for millions of people and proved
deadly for some as the system moved from the Gulf Coast to New England
between August 27 and September 2, 2021. As it moved northward and
joined with another storm system in the Northeast U.S., Ida unleashed
destructive flash floods in Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New
York. At times the storm poured several inches of rain per hour on
areas that were just hit by heavy rains from Tropical Storm Henri.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board
NASA’s Terra satellite acquire a true-color image of the remnants of
Hurricane Ida as they stretched over the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast on
September 1. On that day, tornadoes spawned by the storm struck
Maryland and New Jersey, while torrential downpours stretched across
the entire region.

Rain gauge data indicate that many of the worst-hit areas saw 6 to 10
inches (15 to 25 centimeters) of rain fall in just a few hours, a
deluge that quickly turned streets into rushing rivers and buildings
into islands. Due to the extreme conditions, the National Weather
Service (NWS) even issued flash flood emergency warnings for New York
City and parts of New Jersey. These alerts are reserved for
“exceedingly rare situations when a severe threat to human life and
catastrophic damage from a flash flood is happening or will happen
soon”, according NWS. The flooding has caused more than two dozen
deaths, according to news reports.

Rivers in Pennsylvania and New Jersey broke all-time records for water
levels. In southeastern Pennsylvania, East Brandywine Creek rose as
high as 19 feet, smashing the previous high-water mark of nearly 14
feet, which was set during Hurricane Floyd in 1999. In Wilmington,
Delaware, Brandywine Creek swamped urban areas and led to large numbers
of water rescues. In New Jersey, the Millstone River at Weston and the
Raritan River at Manville both narrowly broke flood records as well.
The rainfall total of 8.41 inches at Newark, New Jersey, on September 1
was the highest for any calendar day in Newark records.

The Schuylkill River in Pennsylvania also saw major flooding. With a
gauge in Norristown recording a record height of nearly 27 feet (19
feet is considered major flooding), rushing waters shut down highways
and swamped homes, businesses, and cars in some parts of Philadelphia.
In New York City, Central Park saw 3.15 inches of rain fall in one
hour, smashing the hourly record set just days before during Tropical
Storm Henri. Floodwater poured into the city’s subway system, basement
apartments, and the cars of stranded motorists.

In a recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,
scientists drew an unequivocal link between human activity and global
warming. They also pointed to an observed increase in the intensity and
frequency of heavy precipitation events in eastern North America as a
consequence of warming. Scientists project that an increase in both
mean and extreme precipitation is very likely in the future.

Image Facts
Satellite: Terra
Date Acquired: 9/1/2021
Resolutions: 1km (1.3 MB), 500m (4.3 MB),
Bands Used: 1,4,3
Image Credit: MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC



https://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/individual.php?db_date=2021-09-04

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