Historic back-to-back storms forced two Ontario cities to declare states of emergency this week. Norfolk's downtown flooded again Tuesday afternoon. And the National Hurricane Center is warning that August through October produces more than 85% of all Atlantic tropical activity — even in a season that's been unusually quiet so far. Here's what's happening right now, why the pattern matters, and what to do this week.
Live Situation — August 4, 2026
- Ontario: States of emergency declared in St. Catharines and the Town of Lincoln after three separate storm events dumped over 250 mm (10 in) of rain on parts of the Niagara Region in a single week.
- Norfolk, VA: Downtown, Ghent, ODU, and Norfolk State flooded Tuesday afternoon after 1.5-3 in of rain fell in under an hour. Colley Avenue and Monticello Avenue underpasses closed.
- NYC region: Flash Flood Emergency Plan activated Monday. Bergen, Essex, Passaic, Rockland, and Westchester counties all under warnings before the system cleared Tuesday morning.
- NHC / NOAA: Peak Atlantic hurricane season now underway. August 20 through October 20 is when 85%+ of the season's tropical activity historically occurs.
Ontario: Three storms in a week, thousands of homes damaged
The most striking flood story of the last 48 hours isn't in the U.S. — it's north of the border. On Monday, the City of St. Catharines and the neighboring Town of Lincoln both declared local states of emergency after what Mayor Mat Siscoe called "three very extraordinary rainfall events" in a single week: heavy storms on July 27 and 28, followed by another intense round on August 2.
The rainfall totals are staggering for southern Ontario. According to The Weather Network, St. Catharines accumulated 257.7 mm (10.1 inches) of rain in the past seven days, with Grimsby recording 214.2 mm and parts of Niagara-on-the-Lake seeing over 160 mm in a single overnight storm on July 27.
"More than a hurricane's worth of rain in each one," Siscoe told CityNews Toronto on Tuesday, adding that thousands of homes have flooded across the region. Roughly 15 to 20% of St. Catharines has been impacted, according to the mayor's assessment. Even Niagara Falls Mayor Jim Diodati's own basement flooded, CBC reported.
The Town of Lincoln's emergency declaration called the flooding "historic" and said the storms "overwhelmed roads, stormwater infrastructure, homes, businesses, and municipal services." Siscoe has publicly asked for provincial and federal disaster relief funds; as of Tuesday evening, no aid package had been announced.
Norfolk: Downtown underwater — again
Closer to home, Norfolk and the broader Hampton Roads area were hit Tuesday afternoon by another round of stalled thunderstorms. According to The Virginian-Pilot, the National Weather Service issued flash flood warnings for northwestern Chesapeake, Norfolk, Portsmouth, and northeastern Suffolk after Doppler radar detected thunderstorms producing rain at 1-2 inches every 30 minutes.
By 3:20 p.m., up to 3 inches had fallen in some Norfolk neighborhoods. Yahoo News reported cars stalled out across the city, and viral video showed a person riding a jet ski down Monticello Avenue near East Princess Anne Road. The city closed both the Colley Avenue and Monticello Avenue underpasses to traffic. Areas expected to flood included downtown Norfolk, downtown Portsmouth, Old Dominion University, Norfolk State University, Ghent, Churchland, Western Branch, Norview, and Huntersville.
For Hampton Roads — already one of the most flood-prone metropolitan areas in the country because of relative sea level rise and outdated stormwater infrastructure — another Ghent flood is not surprising. What is notable is the frequency. Norfolk has now seen significant urban flash flooding three separate times in the last five weeks.
NYC region: Second flash flood emergency in seven days
Monday brought the Northeast's second flash flood emergency in a week. According to NWS New York, warnings covered Bergen, Central Essex, Eastern Passaic, Rockland, and Northern Westchester counties as slow-moving thunderstorms parked over the region and dumped rain on soils already saturated from the July 29 Berkshires-to-Boston event.
The pattern here matters more than any single storm. The Weather Prediction Center's excessive-rainfall guidance repeatedly identifies the same corridor — western Great Lakes into the Northeast, plus coastal Carolinas and the Florida Big Bend — as being in the "Slight Risk" or higher category multiple times per week. Ground that's already at maximum saturation now floods on rainfall totals that would have been merely inconvenient in a dry June.
NHC's warning: The quiet season is ending
All of this is happening in what has, until this point, been an unusually calm tropical season. The 2026 Atlantic Hurricane Season has produced just two named storms — Arthur (June 17-18) and Bertha (July 20-22) — and no hurricanes at all through August 4.
Total Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) sits at approximately 2.6, or roughly 75% below normal for this point in the season, according to National Hurricane Center data cited over the weekend. The Colorado State University seasonal forecast, updated July 8, still characterizes 2026 as a "well below-normal season."
But that framing carries a caveat NHC has been careful to emphasize. As Jacksonville Today summarized from NOAA data, more than 85% of all Atlantic tropical cyclones develop during August, September, and October. The climatological peak is September 10. Below-normal seasons still produce landfalling hurricanes — they just produce fewer of them — and it only takes one to redraw a coastline.
Weather.com noted Sunday that AccuWeather's medium-range guidance now identifies waters near Florida, the Carolinas, Cuba, the Bahamas, and Bermuda as the primary "area to watch" through the middle of August. Nothing is spinning up yet. But the trigger conditions — warm SSTs, weakening shear, incoming African easterly waves — are all lining up.
Why the pattern is worse than any single storm
Zoom out from the individual events and the shape of August 2026 becomes clearer:
- Ground is saturated everywhere east of the Mississippi. The Great Lakes flood siege in April, the persistent Northeast rainfall through July, and now this week's Ontario/Northeast events mean soil moisture is at or above the 90th percentile across a huge swath of the country. Flood thresholds are lower than they normally would be.
- Urban infrastructure is being tested weekly, not annually. Norfolk's third flood in five weeks is the tell. Cities designed for 100-year storm events are now seeing them multiple times a season.
- The tropical basin is coiled. A quiet July doesn't drain the fuel out of the ocean. It just means the fuel is still there. When shear finally relaxes and the Cape Verde train starts running, the storms that develop are likely to be more intense because the SSTs are warmer than average.
- El Niño is layering on top of it. The 2026-2027 Super El Niño forecast has been strengthening for six weeks. The winter risk pattern — wetter southern tier, more atmospheric rivers on the West Coast — is now the base-case forecast heading into fall.
What to do this week
If you're anywhere in the flood-affected corridor — Ontario, the Northeast, Hampton Roads, or the Mid-Atlantic — treat the next 30 days as active flood season, not late summer.
- Turn on real-time alerts. Our free Flood Watch tool pulls live NWS alerts to your ZIP code so you know the second a warning goes up. During Monday's NYC event, first warnings went out at 1:38 p.m. and the flooding was already underway by 3 p.m. Two hours of lead time is enough time to move a car; it's not enough time to sandbag a garage.
- Stage protection before the next round. If you're in a saturated-ground area, don't wait for a warning to grab supplies. Dry StormBags weigh about a pound each, store flat in a closet or garage, and hydrate to full weight in 3-5 minutes when needed. See our room-by-room staging guide for placement.
- Know the difference between watch, warning, and emergency. Watches mean conditions are favorable; warnings mean it's imminent or happening; emergencies mean life-threatening flooding is actively occurring. See our full alert-level breakdown.
- Watch the tropics. NHC's 7-day tropical outlook is currently quiet, but the AccuWeather medium-range zone of interest is now within landfall distance of the U.S. Southeast. That can change in 72 hours.
The Ontario situation is a case study in what happens when three "extraordinary" events land inside a week. Infrastructure that survived any one of them individually failed under the cumulative load. Home defenses are the same. What you stage now — before ground saturation deepens, before a Cape Verde storm starts spinning, before the next stalled thunderstorm parks over your ZIP — is what you'll have when the next warning goes up.
We'll continue updating this space as August develops. Stay safe.
Sources: CBC News, CityNews Toronto, The Weather Network, The Virginian-Pilot, Yahoo News, NWS, National Hurricane Center, Jacksonville Today, weather.com.
