The New York Floods of 1935 and 1936

Although records, relatively long for this region, indicated a favored location in respect to the occurrence of great storms, within nine months, New York State was visited by two major floods, one in July, 1935, and the other in March, 1936. The flood of July, 1935, was caused by a storm of the thunder-shower type of unusually large areal extent in the south-central part of the State. Many small streams had peak discharges of more than 2 000 cu ft per sec per sq mile. The damage, especially severe along the small streams, might well be called dynamic damage. The flood of March, 1936, was caused by moderate rains and melting snow which produced record-breaking discharges; both peak and total, on the larger streams, chiefly in the Hudson and Susquehanna River basins. Damage was caused principally by inundation along the larger streams. More and better hydrologic records are needed as part of the basic data for the design and operation of flood preventive and control projects and the solution of the problems of engineering economics involved.