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\n A thunderstorm lands on Fourth of July weekend.
\n Photo: Stephen Wilkes\n <\/p>\n
Odysseus isn\u2019t the only one braving storms this year. New York\u2019s summer weather has been a trial and a tribulation, intense heat \u2014 temperatures reached over 100 degrees in Central Park on the hottest day in July \u2014 alternating with gales and floods. \u201cWe\u2019re on track to double our average precipitation for August,\u201d says Alex Gallagher, a meteorologist at NYC Emergency Management. \u201cFour out of the five most intense flooding events in the last five years happened this year.\u201d<\/p>\n
That won\u2019t come as a great surprise to anyone who\u2019s had to wring themselves out over a storm drain in the past couple of months. Stomp-and-holler virtuoso Noah Kahan had to cancel his July appearance at Citi Field when storm clouds threatened. Public World Cup watch parties at Brooklyn Bridge Park and the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens were canceled. The Yankees have been rained out of four games so far, and an outdoor concert for 5,000 in Bryant Park, a tribute to Ella Fitzgerald, was scuppered. Cindy Adams, the weather vane of the New York Post, took to her column to carp, \u201cNYC\u2019s summer weather has been just like how we all feel \u2014 lousy.\u201d Over the Fourth of July weekend, a series of storms skimmed the south of the city, pummeling Coney Island and the Rockaways with sand and sending beach umbrellas spinning like tops. Two tornadoes, a metro-area rarity, upped the ante in August, whipping through parts of Queens and Long Island.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an aggravation; it\u2019s a money pit. Mayor Mamdani just announced he\u2019d be increasing the budget of the Orwellian-sounding Bureau of Coastal Resilience<\/a> to more than $43 million to shore up floodgates. And it\u2019s not over yet. Summer temperatures are expected to last into October, and El Ni\u00f1o is currently gathering strength in the Pacific. No rest, it seems, for the storm sentries. \u201cBelieve me,\u201d Gallagher says, ringing off. \u201cI wish autumn would get here, too.\u201d<\/p>\n Thank you for subscribing and supporting our journalism. Want more stories like this one? Subscribe now<\/a>
\n If you prefer to read in print, you can also find this article in the August 24, 2026, issue of
\n New York\u00a0Magazine.<\/p>\n
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\n If you prefer to read in print, you can also find this article in the August 24, 2026, issue of
\n New York Magazine.<\/p>\n