Climate change is amplifying extreme rain events in the Northeast, research shows
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(NEW YORK) — The extreme rainfall that occurred in the Northeast on Monday will likely occur more often in the future as a result of climate change, research shows.
The Northeast has experienced the largest regional increase of extreme precipitation in the U.S., with a 60% increase in recent decades, according to the U.S. government’s Fifth National Climate Assessment, a summary of the latest climate science research findings by 14 different federal agencies, published in November 2023.
Extreme precipitation events are very rare, defined as the top 1% of daily precipitation events.
While it’s problematic to attribute any specific weather event solely to climate change, global warming is amplifying naturally occurring events, like the torrent of rain that fell on the Northeast on Monday evening, making them more intense.
New York City’s Central Park preliminarily recorded its second-highest hourly rainfall total since 1943, measuring 2.07 inches of precipitation in one hour at around 7 p.m. on Monday, according to the National Weather Service (NWS). The amount of rain that fell in one hour represents a 1-in-20-year flood for Central Park, meaning there is a 5% chance it could happen in any given year.
The record for most precipitation in one hour in Central Park was set on Sept. 1, 2021, when the remnants from Hurricane Ida caused 3.15 inches of rain to fall, flooding basement apartments in the city and killing 13 people.
The deluge of water caused subway lines to flood, with water even rushing from platforms and into train cars. In at least one instance, the city sewer overflowed into the subway system, according to the city’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
Between one and five inches of water fell in neighboring northern and central New Jersey, with the highest totals measured in the regions around Plainfield, New Jersey and White Plains, New York – about five inches, according to the NWS. Metro-North and New Jersey Transit commuter train lines experienced service disruptions due to downed trees and flooding, and numerous roadways in the region were closed due to floodwaters. Two people were killed when their car was swept into the overflowing Cedar Brook river in Plainfield, officials said.
According to climate scientists, human-amplified climate change is causing extreme rainfall events to become more frequent and more intense. More intense extreme rainfall events also increase the frequency and scale of flash flooding as the influx of water is more than existing infrastructure was built to handle, according to the Fifth National Climate Assessment.
Additionally, human-amplified climate change has contributed to increases in the frequency and intensity of the heaviest precipitation events across nearly 70% of the U.S., the Fifth National Climate Assessment found.
ABC News’ Climate and Weather Unit contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — A federal judge in New York declined on Monday to grant Sean “Diddy” Combs bail, finding no “exceptional reasons” to release him prior to his October sentencing.
Combs was convicted of transportation to engage in prostitution, which the judge said mandates incarceration. His sentencing is set for Oct. 3.
Judge Arun Subramanian said Combs remains a risk of flight and a danger to the community, pointing to the violence exhibited on 2016 hotel surveillance footage that shows him kicking and dragging Cassie Ventura.
Defense attorneys said Combs transported male escorts not for profit or under duress but to join his “swingers lifestyle,” arguing those unique circumstances warranted release. The judge said that argument “might have traction” in a different case but not one that included evidence of violence, coercion or subjugation in connection with the prostitution.
“The record here contains evidence of all three,” Subramanian said.
“While Combs may contend at sentencing that this evidence should be discounted and that what happened was nothing more than a case of willing ‘swingers’ utilizing the voluntary services of escorts for their mutual pleasure, the Government takes the opposite view: that Cassie Ventura and Jane were beaten, coerced, threatened, lied to, and victimized by Combs as part of their participation in these events,” the opinion said. Combs also argued for release on bail because of the squalor and danger at the Metropolitan Detention Center. But the judge said jail staff “has been able to keep him safe,” even during an incident of threatened violence from an inmate, according to the opinion. The judge’s order did not elaborate on the nature of the threat or what jail staff did to mitigate it.
Combs has been incarcerated at the federal jail in Brooklyn for 11 months.
Following an eight-week federal trial, a jury convicted Combs last month of two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution but acquitted him of more serious sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges.
Subramanian denied him bail following the verdict, citing then as well the violence that was “starkly depicted” in the 2016 hotel security footage.
(NEW YORK) — A New York judge has declared a mistrial on the third-degree rape count in Harvey Weinstein’s sex crimes retrial on Thursday, after the jury foreman refused to return to deliberate.
The foreman had told Judge Curtis Farber on Wednesday that he was afraid to be in the same room with fellow jurors after he claimed they yelled at him to try and change his mind.
Asked if he would be willing to go back to the deliberation room Thursday, the foreman said, “No, I’m sorry.” Farber then dismissed the remaining jurors.
The former movie mogul was accused of sexually assaulting three women over a decade ago in New York City.
The mistrial comes a day after the jury convicted Weinstein on one count of criminal sex act involving Mimi Haley and acquitted him of another count of criminal sex act involving Kaja Sokola.
The third count related to an alleged assault on aspiring actress Jessica Mann in 2013.
All three women have publicly come forward and testified during the trial.
Farber said he spoke to the remaining jurors who told him they were “disappointed” they did not get to render a verdict on the third count.
“I will say they were extremely disappointed that deliberations ended before they reached a verdict,” Farber said.
The judge also said the remaining jurors did not describe anything like the discord and threats recounted by the foreman.
“They all thought they were involved in a normal discourse, and they don’t understand why the foreperson bowed out,” Farber said.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, whose office prosecuted the case, said they “immediately” informed the court Thursday that they are ready to try Weinstein again on the rape count after conferring with Mann.
“Harvey Weinstein is going to be held accountable for his conduct as to Miss Haley, and he’s facing a very significant term of imprisonment for that,” Bragg said during a press briefing Thursday. “But the jury was not able to reach a conclusion as to Miss Mann, and she deserves that.”
Bragg thanked the three women for their “immense sacrifices,” saying they “spent days on the witness stand sharing the most traumatic moments of their lives in a room full of strangers.”
“Their credibility and character were attacked during lengthy cross-examinations. They were accused of being money-hungry. They were called liars. They were even told that they in fact were the abusers,” he said. “But they stood their ground, and for that, I am extraordinarily grateful.”
An attorney for Weinstein, Arthur Aidala, said they plan to appeal the conviction in the retrial.
“We have very powerful evidence that there was gross juror misconduct at this trial,” Aidala told reporters outside the courthouse. “None of us have ever heard of that where a jury is so intimidated a grown man who was in good physical shape in his late 30s saying, I’m afraid to go back into the deliberating room.”
“If that doesn’t cast doubt on the verdicts here, I don’t know what would. This is not over,” he said.
Aidala further alleged jury misconduct, saying they found out that jurors were considering evidence not admitted at trial.
The foreperson told the judge on Monday that jurors were discussing Harvey Weinstein’s past, according to a transcript of the closed encounter in the judge’s chambers. When the judge summoned the entire jury that day, he reminded them to discuss only the evidence presented at trial and to be cordial.
Asked if he would be looking into the alleged jury malfeasance, Bragg said, “Vigorous and robust exchange of ideas within the jury room is a hallmark, an important hallmark, of our system. And so from what we’ve seen within the record, the jury notes and our observation, this is consistent with the administration of justice.”
Weinstein was being retried for sexually assaulting Haley and Mann after his earlier conviction was overturned on appeal. He was also charged with sexually assaulting Sokola, who was not part of the first trial.
Prosecutors said Weinstein “preyed” on the three women as “he held unfettered power for over 30 years” in Hollywood, while the defense countered the producer did not coerce the women and claimed they were using him for his connections.
Weinstein, 73, pleaded not guilty and has said his sexual encounters were consensual. He did not testify during the trial.
The split verdict and mistrial on the third count came after some discord in the jury room during deliberations.
Early Wednesday, the jury foreperson sent a note telling Farber he “cannot go back inside with those people.” That followed a closed-door conversation during which the foreperson complained to the judge that the jurors were “attacking” one another and fighting — adding, “I don’t like it” — according to a transcript.
Without the jury present, Weinstein addressed the judge on Wednesday and complained the jury behavior is depriving him of a fair trial.
“We’ve heard threats, we’ve heard fights, we’ve heard intimidation,” Weinstein said. “This is not right for me, the person on trial here.”
Farber had proposed a cooling-off period, then the jury came back in saying they had a verdict on the two criminal sex act counts.
They resumed deliberations on the rape count on Thursday, wtih Farber reminding the jurors to be respectful to one another.
Mann said in a statement Wednesday that she “laid bare my trauma” and “stood up and told the truth. Again and again.”
“I would never lie about rape or use something so traumatic to hurt someone,” she said.
New York’s highest court overturned Weinstein’s initial 2020 conviction on appeal last year, finding the trial judge “erroneously admitted testimony of uncharged, alleged prior sexual acts against persons other than the complainants of the underlying crimes.”
Weinstein has also appealed his 2022 conviction on sex offenses in Los Angeles. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison there.
Aidala said Thursday they are “very confident that that appeal will be successful.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(AUSTIN) — The deadly floods that struck Texas on the 4th of July caught local officials off guard as the torrential rains caused the Guadalupe River to rise to near-historic levels in a matter of minutes, officials said at a press conference Saturday.
A Flood Watch was in effect for parts of New Mexico and western Texas Thursday afternoon as rounds of slow-moving thunderstorms packing heavy rain moved through the area. By Thursday evening, five inches of rain had fallen in parts of western Texas, including Midland and Odessa.
The National Weather Service issued a flash flood warning for Kerr County, where the river is located, around 1:14 a.m. Friday.
The Guadalupe River rose 26 feet in 45 minutes that morning, Kerrville Mayor Joe Herring told reporters Friday.
“This came at night, when people were asleep in bed,” he said.
The river reached its second-highest height on record, surpassing a 1987 flood level, the National Weather Service said.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick told reporters that it is up to local mayors and counties to evacuate if they feel the need and many were unsure where the storm would land.
At a news conference Friday, Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly said the county does not have a warning system on the river.
Kelly was pressed by a reporter as to why evacuations didn’t take place Thursday, but the judge said, “We didn’t know this flood was coming.”
“We have floods all the time. This is the most dangerous river valley in the United States, and we deal with floods on a regular basis. When it rains, we get water. We had no reason to believe that this was going to be anything like what’s happened here, none whatsoever,” he said.
Rain continued to hit the region Saturday, prompting flash flood emergency warnings for much of Burnet County and western parts of Williamson County and Travis County.
ABC News’ Emily Shapiro and Kyle Reiman contributed to this post.
