Disturbing model suggests New York will more regularly see ‘100-year flooding’

A new government report released Tuesday -- which says that revved-up climate change now permeates Americans’ daily lives with harm that is “already far-reaching and worsening across every region of the United States” -- is the most recent spotlight on how shifting weather trends are being experienced at a very local level.

The National Climate Assessment, which comes out every four to five years, has details that bring climate change’s impacts down to that local level.

According to the study, northeastern cities are seeing more extreme heat, flooding and poor air quality, as well as risks to infrastructure, while drought and floods exacerbated by climate change threaten farming and ecosystems in rural areas.

Flooding has had a particular impact in New York in recent years, including history-making downpours this summer that literally stopped traffic in New York City.

Data from the First Street Foundation, a non-profit research and technology group focused on making climate risk information accessible, is the basis for a disturbing model of more-frequent extreme precipitation events.

In a June report titled “The 8th National Risk Assessment: The Precipitation Problem,” the organization suggests that the type of severe precipitation and flooding that National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) models expect once every 100 years, in fact will hit with far more often due to climate change.

NY COULD SEE ‘100-YEAR FLOODS’ EVERY FEW DECADES

CNN analysis of the First Street Foundation data shows that NYC and a number of counties in the southern tier of the state are located in a band that is forecast to see a 1-in-100 year storm once every 11-25 years.

Further north and west in New York, areas such as Erie county and Saratoga county can expect these severe weather threats once every 26-50 years, as presented in the model reported by CNN.

Meanwhile, way up north on the border of Canada, there has not been as great a change, with these once in a lifetime storms set to occur every 91 years or more.

“The magnitude of the changes in expected rainfall intensity are startling for many areas in the United States, and it is important that Americans are fully aware of this consequence of climate change that can impact their lives and homes,” said First Street’s Senior Hydrologist and Lead Author of the peer-reviewed study Dr. Jungho Kim said.

The First Street Foundation data also reveals that approximately 51% of Americans live in areas that are twice as likely to experience a severe “1-in-100 year flood” event, and roughly 21% of the country can expect their “1-in-100-year flood” to occur every 25 years.

In the most alarming cases, more than 20 counties in the US, home to over 1.3 million people, can expect a “1-in-100 year flood” at least once every 8-10 years.

Increases in severe storms exist throughout the Northeast, along the Ohio River Valley, and the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast, areas that have invested the most in solutions for flood protection, according to First Street Foundation.

‘NONE OF THIS IS INEVITABLE’

Unveiling the National Climate Assessment report at the White House, President Joe Biden blasted Republican legislators and his predecessor for disputing global warming.

“Anyone who willfully denies the impact of climate change is condemning the American people to a very dangerous future. Impacts are only going to get worse, more frequent, more ferocious and more costly,” Biden said, noting that disasters cost the country $178 billion last year. “None of this is inevitable.”

Overall, Tuesday’s assessment paints a picture of a country warming about 60% faster than the world as a whole, one that regularly gets smacked with costly weather disasters and faces even bigger problems in the future.

Climate change is “harming physical, mental, spiritual, and community health and well-being through the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme events, increasing cases of infectious and vector-borne diseases, and declines in food and water quality and security,” the report said.

Compared to earlier national assessments, this year’s uses far stronger language and “unequivocally” blames the burning of coal, oil and gas for climate change.

ASSOCIATED PRESS MATERIAL WAS USED IN THIS REPORT