Steve Reiners, Marvin Pritts, Greg Peck and others weigh in on how drought in New York is affecting fruit and vegetable growers in this What’s With the Weather? post on the Cornell Climate Change website:
Above: U.S. Drought Monitor map for New York for July 19. View latest map.
From sweet corn to apples, root crops to pumpkins. The drought in much of New York is taking its toll.
The dry spring follows a record warm winter, not only for New York (NRCC) but for the contiguous 48 states as a whole (NOAA). Warm temperatures and somewhat below average precipitation in western New York throughout the winter resulted in a minimal snowpack.
April was unusually cold, and may have felt wetter, but rainfall was still below average throughout the western New York region.
For the rest of March through June, temperatures in central and western New York have been normal while rainfall has been only about 50% of normal.
In July, temperatures have risen to be above normal, dry winds have blown, and the rainfall remains meagre. As of July 17 substantial portions of western and central NY had only received between 1 and 2” total rainfall in the last 6 weeks. Twenty-three percent of the state was in Severe Drought ((US Drought Monitor), and the New York Department of Environmental Conservation issued its first statewide drought watch in 14 years.