MARTINSBURG, W.Va. — This time last year, farmers in the Eastern Panhandle were gearing up for a significant drought that didn’t see relief until late summer.
This year, it looked like it was trending that way for the first three or four months of the year.
The US Drought Monitor had listed Martinsburg and Charles Town as D2 or Severe Drought areas only a few weeks ago, but later in the month moved those areas to Moderate Drought, or D1 status.
Areas west, including Paw Paw and the Town of Bath, which had been at D1 status this spring have now moved to D0, or Abnormally Dry. Just this morning, the Morgan County areas were downgraded to
No Drought, according to this week’s U.S. Drought Monitor.
The Climate Prediction Center’s May Drought Outlook, released on April 30, 2025, predicted that drought conditions would likely improve in May.
The difference maker, according to WV Eastern Panhandle Weather’s Will Astle, is the month of May:
“This could be one of the Top 5 or even Top 8 wettest Mays on recorded history,” Astle said. “But there is a large variation of accumulations. If you go from the far western areas from Mineral and Grant and the far eastern areas in Jefferson and Berkeley.”
Astle said it also depends on where your rain fell and specific geographic elements as to whether the rain was beneficial:
“A lot of that rain did end up running off into the rivers, so we really some of the 24-hour, long, slow, steady, rainfall,” Astle said.
For farmers like Spring Valley Farm’s Eli Cook, the rain is welcomed after a growing season last year that found them irrigating much of their growing area.
This spring, there have been other challenges, particularly to the strawberry crop, Cook said.
“There was a really weird disease that came up last fall called Neo-P, it came from Florida, it came up with Hurricane Helene and that affected transplants in the fall,” Cook said. “Then on top of that we had negative temperatures in January, a freeze on April 8 and nine and a half inches of rain in harvest season.”
Cook said they’ve had to make some changes in how they offer strawberries to their customers.
“We built in some fluff there with wholesale and stuff, so that was the first thing we cut out and the second thing we’ve cut out is major volume discounts. We’ve stripped down, selling mostly by the quart,” Cook said.
Both Astle and Cook were guests on Thursday’s Panhandle Live on WEPM/WCST The Panhandle News Network.