On October 30th, 2025, Hoboken was hit with a significant rainstorm, with rainfall rates nearly reaching 3 inches per hour. The extreme rainfall rate quickly led to widespread street flooding throughout Hoboken, with areas on the Stevens campus, such as Wittpenn Walk, turning into a river. These flash flooding events are only projected to occur more frequently over time from the impacts of climate change, and developing better flood mitigation strategies and infrastructure is essential in protecting Hoboken from flash flooding. All of this starts with knowing Hoboken’s climate and knowing exactly when thunderstorms will arrive. Stevens’ brand new X-band weather radar aims to help researchers achieve this.
A weather radar works by sending out pulses of microwave radio waves and measuring the energy that bounces back after hitting precipitation, such as rain, snow, and hail. The time it takes for the signal to return indicates how far away the precipitation is, while the strength of the returned signal indicates how intense the precipitation is. Together, this information helps forecasters track storm location, intensity, movement, and potential severe weather.
The New York City region already has multiple weather radars that cover the area, operated by the National Weather Service (NWS). The closest of these radars is about 50 miles from Manhattan. Precipitation that is further from the radar will return a lower resolution output when compared to precipitation that is closer. The Stevens campus is conveniently located about 2 miles from Midtown Manhattan. Building a weather radar in this location provides the capability to track and analyze storms in and around New York City to a degree that no other currently operational radar can achieve. Additionally, this radar implements the X-band, which can scan precipitation at a higher resolution when compared to the NWS S-band NEXRAD radar. Being able to scan storms over Manhattan from only two miles away allows for precipitation to be visualized in incredible detail. Having access to real-time, high-resolution data gives forecasters the ability to issue weather warnings with greater lead time and accuracy, both of which are essential in giving cities such as Hoboken the time to prepare adequate flood mitigation measures.
The ability to issue timely weather warnings is essential. In the 2025 October flooding event, despite the intense rainfall rate, a flash flood warning was never issued for Hudson County. While there are numerous reasons for this, part of the reasoning may have been due to the unexpected nature of the rainfall intensity. In a statement issued by former Hoboken Mayor Ravinder Bhalla, the October event “produced significantly more rainfall than forecasted.” Despite major advances in weather guidance models, there is still no operational model that incorporates smaller-scale storm features and real-time data into its forecasts, partially due to the lack of radar systems that can scan storms with great detail. These models—called nowcasting models—would allow meteorologists to accurately predict storm evolution over minutes, rather than hours. It is possible that forecasters may have been able to anticipate a rapid flash flooding event such as the one that occurred in October had such a model existed.
Stevens hopes that the capabilities provided by their new X-band radar will allow its partners, such as the NWS and Offices of Emergency Management to better predict rainstorms as they evolve, and coordinate timely weather warnings. Additionally, graduate and undergraduate students will receive the opportunity to work directly with real-time radar data from the X-band radar, serving as a new educational resource for Stevens students and faculty.
