It Keeps on Raining Too Much Too Fast

This was a year of too much rain. It rained too much in the Northeast. It rained too much in the Pacific Northwest, where, after a hazy summer of record wildfires, record rainfall temporarily rendered Vancouver impassable by road or rail. On the Gulf Coast and in the mid-Atlantic, the wettest days keep getting wetter. This is one of climate change’s twisted bits of logic: Where it was dry, it was too dry. But where it was wet, it was way too wet.

In New York City, nearly 15 years after the mayor’s office began announcing bold strategies for climate mitigation and adaptation, the rain made a mockery of those plans. In July, 1.5 inches of rain fell in an hour, drowning streets and flooding social media with of people wading through inundated subway entrances to reach trains that were somehow still running. In September, the remnants of Hurricane Ida, which began its life