By Bill Evans
Borrowing from my Mississippi upbringing, “toad-stranglin’ rain” is what we had this past Sunday evening over Suffolk County.
Now, of course, it’s not unusual to have thunderstorms that produce heavy downpours in the summertime. However, when the thunderstorms from a cold front morph into a shocking, cataclysmic 10 inches of rain, we are left to wonder as to why hundreds of thousands of Suffolk County residents living on the East End continue to be neglected when it comes to having a U.S. government weather reporting station.
This is not the first time there has been this type of rainfall that seems to defy computer weather modeling.
Over the past two years, we have had similar weather occur three times, although not as widespread, nor with the type of devastating flooding that destroyed roads, threatened homes and inundated neighborhoods. As Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine observed, these “one hundred-year” storms are beginning to arrive with chilling regularity. We must recognize that these severe weather events are going to occur more often, threatening property and lives.
What would make severe weather modeling far more accurate is to have better reporting from a weather station or multiple reporting stations located on Long Island’s North and South Forks.
Currently, the National Weather Service relies on a spotter network of individuals, and even those reporters are sparse in some cases; none are on the East End. Many of their reports are “after-action” observations regarding how much rain (or snow) has fallen. Forecasts and public warnings are not within their purview.
A true NWS weather reporting station would be essential in providing timely, accurate forecasts for an East End that only continues to increase in population.
To appreciate the extent of the problem, east of a NWS station adjacent to Brookhaven National Lab in Upton, the public cannot get an official daytime high or low, or an official rainfall total or totals. We do not have official climatology to tell us what has accurately happened in the past to compare it to the present weather patterns, which is key to accurate forecasting and timely warnings.
One NWS official told reporters after this weekend’s deluge that “forecasts never usually predict 10 inches of rain during a particular storm.”
Which, of course, is actually the point. Had there been a timely appreciation of how a storm system had stalled, what its devastating implications were for streams, roads and neighborhoods, first responders would have been able to be on prepositioned alert and poised to take prompt action. PSEG Long Island would have allocated additional crews to be on standby adjacent to weather-targeted communities.
In addition, and perhaps most important, professional meteorologists who depend on NWS data would have been able to send out alerts in time for hundreds of thousands of Suffolk County residents to appreciate the nature of the unfolding threat.
One need only look at the NWS website for New York City and review its climatology page. You’ll find there is no official reporting station east of Upton in Suffolk County. The public and our elected officials need to ask: “Why is that?”
A coalition of concerned constituencies must confront Washington, D.C. bureaucrats who ultimately control budget and resources. If Governor Kathy Hochul can find millions to repair storm damage at Montauk, then one can ask about funding lifesaving weather reports. If a decision can be made to spend $52 million to replenish the regularly weather-ravaged Fire Island summer community with some two million yards of sand, we can surely find the far more modest sums of money to fund and staff an East End NWS weather station designed to protect its scores of communities.
The storm without a name that did so much damage to our region that it literally left us in the dark, having us endure “toad-stranglin’ rain” — which, candidly, the toads are also getting tired of.
The East End of Long Island deserves a National Weather Service reporting station. And it deserves it before the next surprise storm produces not just rain but tragedy.
Bill Evans, longtime meteorologist for WABC-TV Channel 7 Eyewitness News, is the owner of WLNG radio, based in Sag Harbor.
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