Buffalo, NY (WBEN) We sure needed the rain Western New York received late Sunday and Monday and it did put a dent into the deficit of rain the region has been suffering from.
The mainly steady and sometimes heavy rain turned out to be quite helpful for farmers looking for relief from a drought. But forecasters say much more will be needed to make up the shortfall of rain.
The National Weather Service says more than an inch of rain fell on the Niagara Frontier overnight Sunday into Monday. It's helpful says National Weather Service Meteorologist John Hitchcock, but more will have to fall. "Even a good soaking rainfall like this won't alleviate what's has been several months of coming up short for rainfall," explains Hitchcock. He says it's going to take several rainfall events like this to completely get us back on track rainfall wise.
Hitchcock says we will need several more inches of rain over the course of a couple of weeks, but that doesn't appear to be in the cards. "The rest of the rain chances we have through the end of the week and in the next week. Looks like we're back to more spotty, kind of typical summertime showers and thunderstorms," warns Hitchcock.
The rainfall was helpful to Singer Bittner Orchard. Jim Bittner says he saw an inch and a half of rainfall. "We were in a drought situation. We were irrigating some of our trees, but I can't get irrigation to all of them," says Bittner. The only down part about this rainfall, is a lot of the sweet cherries were almost ripe and will crack because of the rain so they won't be harvestable. But he says other crops like peaches, plums and apples really needed the rain.
Bittner says he'd like to see an inch of rain every other week to help. He says the irrigation also helps the drought situation. "But my irrigation doesn't isn't certainly not as beneficial as getting an inch of rain shower. The the I mean it really soaks in," explains Bittner. He says he's using trickle irrigation and just spoon feeding it, trying to keep them out of a severe drought situation.
He says the way the rain came down has been helpful too. "it didn't come down in a thunderstorm we didn't get one inch in one hour, so the water didn't run off," adds Bittner. "That inch and a half came down in a period of 8 hours."
Bittner says the farm isn't in panic mode, but notes the apples may not be as big as normal. "We want apples that are at least two and a half inch in diameter up to three and a half inch diameter. So our goal was three and a half inch, maybe we'll we'll be three inch, it'll still be okay," adds Bittner.