Stunning Time-Lapse Captures the May 20 Storm Rolling Over New York City — 749 Likes and Counting

Storm chaser Justin Zepperi's time-lapse of the severe thunderstorm that paralyzed NYC on May 20 has gone viral. The video captures the shelf cloud, lightnin...

Updated May 23, 2026
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May 23, 2026. Storm chaser Justin Zepperi 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: Storm_Chaser_Justin (@Justin_Zepperi) — “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:

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.

Topics

stormtimelapseviralNYCLong Islandsevere thunderstormMay 20weathershelf cloudlightningNYC storm timelapse May 2026New York thunderstorm timelapse video

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