It may have rained this week, but that is not expected to have much effect on streams and lawns across the region. Rainfall is more than four inches below normal.
It isn't your imagination that things seem a little dry around here and the grass looks a little browner than usual in the season and that waterways are low. "For what would be normal out at Buffalo Airport, we're about 2 1/2 inches below normal for the month of May and we're 1.8 inches below normal for June," says National Weather Service Meteorologist Steven Welch.
Welch says that is across Western New York, although there has been slightly more rain in the Southern Tier than around Buffalo, but not a lot more.
The rainfall shortage shows up in farmland, which relies on rain for moisture for crops. Eden Valley Growers General Manager David Walczak says there are alternatives.
"We like rain. It's been very dry. One nice thing about our area, though, is we have some really good irrigation sources that so far are keeping enough for us to get the job done that we have to," said Walczak. "It just makes more work out in the fields, for sure, having to switch the lines in the middle of the night and several times during the day."
Walczak says there will still be enough corn for the annual Eden Corn Festival.
