Wednesday 14 September 2022 07:29 PM Is YOUR Thanksgiving under threat? Extreme drought hits Massachusetts cranberry ... trends now

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Extreme drought impacting Massachusetts is impacting this year's cranberry harvest - threatening Thanksgiving cranberry sauce and drinks like cosmopolitans - while straining an industry that contributes $1 billion to the state.

Farmers have been feeling the impact of massive weather shifts fueled by climate change in recent years. Two gigantic storms in 2015 and 2017 flooded some cranberry bogs with seawater. A huge amount of rainfall led to pickled crops and a nationwide shortage last year. 

This year, extremely dry conditions began in late spring and didn't let up. Ten out of 14 counties in the state were experiencing extreme drought and the remainder were categorized as severe as of August. 

'The boom or bust scenario that climate change presents when it comes to precipitation events — the boom being the large precipitation event, the bust being long dry spells — that’s not a good thing,' Zachary Zobel, a scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center in Massachusetts, told Grist.