Coastal Flood — Southern Queens, New York

2012-10-29 to 2012-10-30 · Southern Queens, New York

Event narrative

Coastal communities along Southern Queens experienced two successive tidal cycles with at least moderate coastal flooding. The peak of this surge occurred Monday Night as Sandy made landfall in Southern New Jersey, with widespread record coastal flooding occurring along Jamaica Bay exceeding the FEMA 100 year base flood elevations. Peak storm tides surpassed all previously documented high water marks, including the October 31, 1991 and December 11, 1992 nor'easters and the recorded peaks from Hurricane Irene in 2011 and Hurricane Donna in 1960.

The storm tide levels along the Queens shores resulted from a peak storm surge of about 7 to 9 feet that coincided with normal high tides. This resulted in up to 3 to 5 feet of inundation of communities in and along Jamaica Bay. Inundation several blocks inland was experienced across coastal communities such as Howard Beach, Brookville and Inwood. Widespread major residential damage was experienced across areas such as Broad Channel, Meadowmere Park, and Old Howard Beach, where some of the deeper inundation occurred. In addition, JFK Airport experienced 1 to 3 feet of inundation onto portions of their runways.

Across the Rockaways, up to 4 and 7 feet of inundation occurred over the peninsula due to surge from Jamaica Bay on the north side and from surge and wave action from the Atlantic Ocean on the south side. Widespread major damage was experienced across the entire length of the Rockaways, with numerous homes and businesses in Breezy Point, Arverne-Edgemere and Seaside experiencing complete destruction. Atlantic Ocean facing shoreline structures, such as boardwalks and several oceanfront homes were destroyed due to runup and setup on top of storm tide from high wave action of at least 10 to 15 feet from the Atlantic Ocean.

Six fatalities were directly attributed to the storm surge and high surf in Queens.

Wider weather episode

Post Tropical Storm Sandy was the costliest natural disaster in Southeast New York.

Tropical Storm Sandy formed in the Caribbean Sea on October 22. After drifting slowly southwest on October 23, Sandy turned to the north and intensified to a hurricane on October 24, just before making landfall in Jamaica. Hurricane Sandy continued to the north and intensified to a strong category two hurricane before making landfall again in Cuba shortly after Midnight EDT on the 25th. Hurricane Sandy emerged on the other side of Cuba during the morning of the 25th and proceeded to drift northwest as a category one or two hurricane as it moved through the Bahamas on the 25th and 26th. Overnight on the 26th, Hurricane Sandy (Category 1) started to move toward the north northeast, a motion that continued into the evening of the 28th. From there, Sandy's motion became driven by two factors. An anomalously strong blocking ridge over the Canadian Maritimes prevented Sandy from escaping to the east. Simultaneously, an approaching and deepening extratropical trough was about to capture Sandy. The combination of the two, turned Sandy to the north overnight on the 28th and then to the northwest on the 29th.

As Sandy continued to move northwest and interact with the mid latitude trough, its interaction continued to make it less tropical, but did not weaken it much. Sandy continued to make a harder turn to the left (west) and made landfall in Atlantic County as a post tropical storm in Brigantine City just north of Atlantic City at 7:30 p.m. EDT on the 29th. The estimated minimum central pressure was 945 millibars. The lowest recorded central pressure was 945.6 millibars at the Atlantic City Marina at 7:34 p.m. EDT.

Record breaking high tides and wave action was combined with sustained winds of 40 to 60 mph and wind gusts of 80 to 90 mph.

These extreme conditions resulted in at least 60 deaths and widespread property damage of at least 42 billion dollars.

Emergency managers recommended mandatory evacuations of more than 1/2 million people that lived in low lying areas. Widespread significant power outages of more than 2 million lasted up to 2 weeks.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 421130. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.