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May 23, 2026. A storm chaser has published a time-lapse of the severe thunderstorm that hit New York City on the evening of May 20 — and the internet can’t stop watching. 749 likes and 54 retweets in under 24 hours.
Source: A storm chaser on X — “After a painfully slow process, I finally completed my time lapse of the storms over NYC on Wednesday!”
What You’re Watching
The video compresses hours of atmospheric chaos into seconds. You can see:
- The shelf cloud — the ominous leading edge of the storm that rolled across the metro area between 6:00 and 8:00 PM on May 20
- Lightning illuminating the cloud mass from within as the storm intensified
- The wall of rain advancing across the skyline — this is the moment when 6 inches of rain began falling on parts of the city
What happened next was one of the most destructive weather events in recent NYC history.
What the Storm Did
That beautiful time-lapse produced ugly consequences:
- 6 inches of rain in parts of the city — NYC’s sewer system, designed for 1.75 inches per hour, was operating at 340% of capacity
- Subway stations turned into waterfalls — video of water cascading through ceilings went viral
- Every major east-west route from NYC to Long Island flooded simultaneously — I-495 closed at 188th Street, Jackie Robinson Parkway submerged, Hillside Avenue impassable
- A fourth sinkhole opened in Brooklyn at Classon & Park Ave — the fourth ground failure in eight days
- LIRR riders returning from the strike faced their first night back with 60-70 mph winds
- Water poured through LIRR train ceilings — that video is now at 826 likes
- A woman was swept off her feet by floodwater at a bus stop while waiting for the MTA
And now, three days later, the city is in the middle of what forecasters are calling the wettest Memorial Day weekend in 78 years — 2 to 4 more inches of rain expected through Sunday.
Why Time-Lapses Like This Matter
Storm chasers and weather photographers provide something that radar maps and NWS bulletins cannot — a visceral, human-scale perspective of what these systems actually look like from the ground. This video shows why the National Weather Service issued a Severe Thunderstorm Warning for the metro area: the storm wasn’t just rain. It was a structured, violent system with defined boundaries, rotation indicators, and wind shear visible in the cloud dynamics.
For Long Islanders who experienced the storm from underneath it, this is what was coming at you.
Follow our full storm coverage from May 20-23, including editorial analysis, infrastructure accountability reporting, and real-time incident tracking.