At Lavoie’s Farm in New Hampshire, beans and corn haven’t broken through the ground yet and fields of strawberries are stunted. The drought that has taken hold in the Northeast is especially felt at John Lavoie’s farm in Hollis, presenting him with some tough choices. Irrigation ponds are drying up, forcing him to choose between tomatoes and berries or apple and peach trees. Lavoie decided to hold off watering the fruit trees so he could quench the tomato and berry plants before they succumb to the heat.
The dry blast in New Hampshire is being felt throughout the Northeast, from Maine to Pennsylvania, driven by a second year of below-average rainfall. Though not as dire as the West Coast drought of five-years running, the dry, hot weather has stressed farms and gardens, prompted water restrictions and bans in many towns and threatened to bring more wildfires than usual. In the hardest hit areas of western New York, Massachusetts and southern parts of New Hampshire and Maine, it’s been dryer than in a decade or more. And national weather experts predict the drought will persist at least through the end of October.