Northeastern farmers face new challenges with severe drought

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Vermont farmer Brian Kemp is used to seeing the pastures at Mountain Meadows Farm grow slower in the hot, late summer, but this year the grass is at a standstill.

That’s “very nerve-wracking” when you’re grazing 600 to 700 cattle, said Kemp, who manages an organic beef farm in Sudbury. He describes the weather lately as inconsistent and impactful, which he attributes to a changing climate.

“I don’t think there is any normal anymore,” Kemp said.

The impacts of climate change have been felt throughout the Northeastern U.S. with rising sea levels, heavy precipitation and storm surges causing flooding and coastal erosion. But this summer has brought another extreme: a severe drought that is making lawns crispy and has farmers begging for steady rain.

“Farming is challenging,” Kemp said, “and it’s becoming even more challenging as climate change takes place.”

Water supplies are low or dry, and many communities are restricting nonessential outdoor water use.

Providence, R.I. had less than half an inch of rainfall in the third driest July on record, and Boston had six-tenths of an inch in the fourth driest July on record, according to the National Weather Service.

Rhode Island’s governor issued a statewide drought advisory last week with recommendations to reduce water use. The north end of the Hoppin Hill Reservoir in North Attleboro, Mass., is dry, forcing local water restrictions.

Officials in Maine said drought conditions really began there in 2020, with occasional improvements in areas since.

The continuing trend toward drier summers in the Northeast can be attributed to the impact of climate change, since warmer temperatures lead to greater evaporation and drying of soils, climate scientist Michael Mann said.

Mann said there’s evidence shown by his research at Penn State University that climate change is leading to a “stuck jet stream” pattern in which the air current gets stuck in place, locking in extreme weather events that can alternately be associated with extreme heat and drought in one location and extreme rainfall in another. The pattern has played out this summer with the heat and drought in the Northeast and extreme flooding in parts of the Midwest, Mann added.

New England has experienced severe summer droughts before, but experts say it is unusual to have droughts in fairly quick succession since 2016. Massachusetts experienced droughts in 2016, 2017, 2020, 2021 and 2022, which is very likely due to climate change, said Vandana Rao, director of water policy in Massachusetts.

“We hope this is maybe one period of peaking of drought and we get back to many more years of normal precipitation,” she said. “But it could just be the beginning of a longer trend.”