Drew Lerner — senior agricultural meteorologist, founder and president of World Weather Inc. — spoke to attendees at the “Will Weather Threaten Apple Production in 2025” webinar hosted by the U.S. Apple Association on April 10. A key takeaway is cold temperatures will continue in the Northeast into May.
“Your biggest threat for this growing season is coming in these next few weeks as we deal with additional cold weather,” he told the audience. “If we can manage to stay away from freeze damage in May, I think the Northeast will do OK.”
While acknowledging the below-average moisture levels in the Northwest, Lerner said he doesn’t see much concern or threat of cold impacting the region. He even offered that he sees the potential for “a very good year in the Yakima basin” in Washington. But the eastern reaches of apple-growing areas through the end of May are where the focus should be, he said.
“Once we clear the month of May, I think we’re home sweet home,” Lerner said.
Cold concerns for the Northeast
Lerner based his predictions, particularly for the Northeast, on cycles, weather patterns and past production years that matched up with the current year. Of particular relevance is an 18-year lunar cycle that has had repeated patterns of cold sharp surges that have damaged eastern apple crops. These cycles have occurred in 1953, 1971, 1989 and most recently 2007.
“In 2007 there was a crazy cold surge that occurred across the Midwest and parts of the plains and the mid-South area,” he said. “We saw hard freezes occur, and a lot of crop damage occurred in that particular year. This scenario that we have here in these past two or three mornings, it’s very similar to what occurred in 2007. It is, once again, repeating the cycle.”
Lerner cautioned that the cold so far this year is less intense compared to 2007, and the cold that has already hit apple-producing regions during the week of April 7 is likely to be the most potent cold of the current pattern.
“But looking at the data from 2007, we were very convinced that we would end up seeing some kind of threat this spring,” he said.
Lerner sees that threat extending into mid-May, with the second week of May being the most likely to see another cold surge. Since apple development would be a bit further advanced and the intensity of the cold is expected to be lower than in the last cycle in 2007, he said the impact of the coming cold is questionable.
“But, out of all of the apple production areas in the country right now, the areas that I would be most concerned about for another frost or freeze event to occur a little bit later in the season would be the Great Lakes region and the Northeast. Those areas will have some potential,” he said.
Cold surges can bring on additional threats, said Lerner warned, adding that higher-than-usual severe thunderstorms “seem to be in the pipeline” for the Northeast.
“We’re still going to be seeing shots of cool air coming around most of the summer,” he said. “They aren’t going to be nearly as significant as what we’ve had this week, but it will be just enough to set off those strong thunderstorms.”
Dry next year for the Pacific Northwest; cold and dry for the Northeast
Lerner reviewed the most recent U.S. Drought Monitor during the webinar, saying that all areas of apple production are slightly drier than last year, but not to threatening levels for both the Northwest and the Northeast.
Speaking about the Northwest generally, and the Yakima basin in particular, he noted that water storage levels are a bit low for the time of year.
“It’s not unusual to have those water storage levels still running a little low when we get into the first days of the spring, because all the moisture is still tied up in the mountains and the Cascades,” Lerner said.
“Is this a problem for our irrigation? I don’t think so. Not for this year,” he continued. “I am not anticipating excessive heat in the region and, for that reason, our water demand during the summer dry period is probably not going to be off the charts and we’ll probably get along OK. But, it is going to be very important that we end up with a better rainy season next year to make up the difference because we are going to be pretty short on moisture by that time.”
Speaking of the Northeast, Learner said apple growers are “kind of in good shape” regarding dryness, but dryness and cold can feed off each other.
“When you have drought, you have low humidity; dry air,” he said. “If you have dry air, you have a pretty good chance that the temperatures will swing more wildly than they would normally, so some of this cold is a byproduct of the fact that there has been a drier bias in some of the areas in the Northeast. That’s important to keep in mind especially since we are still going to be looking at some additional coolness coming up off and on in these next few weeks.”
Lerner cautioned his audience not to misunderstand.
“I’m not saying that we are going to have a widespread problem,” he said. “I’m just saying that we’re going to have more cold air that’s coming and it may be a threat, depending on how it arrives and how much warmth we get in between the occurrences.”
