Gilroy
– Late season rain may take a break for the remainder of the
week, but residents and area farmers have not seen the end of the
wet weather, according to the National Weather Service.
Gilroy – Late season rain may take a break for the remainder of the week, but residents and area farmers have not seen the end of the wet weather, according to the National Weather Service.
A mid-day forecast Monday of scattered showers and thunder storms held the potential for hale, a common feature of storm systems that wear on into spring, according to Steve Anderson, a meteorologist with the NWS office in Monterey.
“Normally spring shower storms that come through this time of year taper off at the end of April,” he explained. “But they’ve kind of been extending their stay.”
A long-than-usual season has boosted the city’s rain totals to .73 inches in May, slightly above the average for the entire month. Gilroy rainfall totals for the year have reached 25.87 inches, well above the yearly average of 20.6 inches.
In January, six and a half inches fell in Gilroy.
“That was really the month that put you over,” he said. More rain could be headed to the city by early next week, he added.
“This is the worst year I can remember in a long time,” said Pete Aiello, owner and sales manager at Uesugi Farms, off Highway 25. “We still had some effects from it (yesterday) morning from our strawberry harvest. It was damaging our ability to get into the field and harvest. Real muddy, real messy. It becomes difficult and more costly to harvest.”
It also strains his ability to keep pickers happy, said Aiello, who has had to resort to pizza and other perks to placate workers who have had to slog through mud behind a struggling tractor.
“We’ve had a couple of threats of strikes because of the weather,” he said.
“There have been times over the past several years where we’ve had to convince them to stay because the conditions they were picking in weren’t prime. (Sunday) because of the rain, for instance, the guys didn’t want to work.”
The wet weather has not ruined the strawberry crop, and the farm is still on schedule for its harvest.
“I’m just hoping this is a freak winter and spring,” Aiello said, “and that we’ll go back to normal conditions next year.”
