New York City Declares State of Emergency as Historic Rainfall Sparks Widespread Flooding

The Governor of New York Kathy Hochul declared a state of emergency across New York City, Long Island, and the Hudson Valley on Friday morning due to historic rainfall and subsequent flooding in the areas.

The area, which is under a flash flood warning from the National Weather Service that will last until at least Friday night, could see up to four inches of rainfall in some areas. Travel from New York is being severely impacted.

The rain and flooding have gotten bad enough for LaGuardia Airport to close down Terminal A, which includes some low-cost carriers including Spirit Airlines and Frontier Airlines. Even outside of that terminal and outside of LaGuardia in general, the storm is having a major impact on flights, according to FlightAware as of 11 a.m. EST:

• LaGuardia: 10% of departures delayed, 16% of departures cancelled; 23% of arrivals delayed, 8% cancelled. The FAA has issued a ground stop due to the rain until 11:45 a.m.
• John F. Kennedy International: 11% of all departures delayed; 12% of all arrivals delayed. According to the FAA, flights are being delayed by an average of 15 minutes.

According to NBC News, if New York sees more than 7.13 inches of rainfall over the 24-hour period starting on Friday, it will “it will eclipse the record rainfall that fell from the remnants of Hurricane Ida on Sept. 1, 2021.”