By Lenn Thompson, Executive Editor
Most of eastern Long Island was under a severe thunderstorm warning yesterday evening. The storms, which came in waves, brought high winds, heavy rains, hail and even tornados apparently.
I know that we were under two different tornado warnings at my house.
Not long after the storms starting pummeling the North Fork, reports starting coming in of hail damage to local vineyard -- Jamesport Vineyards and Comtesse Therese Vineyard to be precise.
According to long-time grower Ron Goerler, owner of Jamesport Vineyards, his vineyard sustained around 20% loss, telling me in an email "Jamesport was hit with tornadic winds with hail. The west side of the fruit has a fair amount of damage -- split berries."
Theresa Dilworth, owner of Comtesse Therese forwarded me an email from her husband and vineyard manager Sammy Shimura. Half-inch hail hit the vineyard yesterday afternoon and according to Shimura, "Almost all clusters were hit and our fruit got damaged. (On) average 3 or 4 berries of each cluster were slashed. Hail came down from the southwest sky and hit clusters on the southwest side. The northeast side and clusters were not damaged."
With split and damaged berries, the concern now -- beyond loss of fruit itself -- is the spread of disease, which will now need to be managed.
Has anyone else heard about other vineyards being hit by the storms yesterday? If so, please put it in the comments. I'll update the post as new reports come in.
This has been an incredible growing season thus far, but growers know better than to assume anything. Don't believe it when you read people already talking about 2010 being an 'outstanding' year. It's way too early for that.
I'm unfamilliar with the weather patterns out east, is this type of severe weather, common?
Good Luck!
Brian
norcalwingman
Posted by: Brian | July 22, 2010 at 10:55 AM
Brian: I wouldn't call it "common" but it does happen. We also occasionally have to deal with hurricanes and tropical storms moving up the coast.
Apparently (and I'm working on a story about this) the Atlantic is warmer than typical this year, which could help those storms maintain their strength...which would be devastating to the local wine industry.
Posted by: Lenn Thompson | July 22, 2010 at 10:58 AM
Hail has not been common on the North Fork - before this year and last many of the old farmers could not remember experiencing it.
To show how weird the weather can be, Cutchogue and many points east did not even receive a drop of rain during yesterday's storm.
Warmer water temperatures can make some storms stronger, especially in the case of a hurricane. That's way many hurricanes follow the path of the Gulf Stream up the coast. But its not the case for all storms.
Anything can happen that's for sure but with the exception of this isolated storm yesterday we've had nothing but picture perfect weather on the North Fork!
The season is still trending 2+ weeks earlier than average.
Posted by: R.Olsen-Harbich | July 22, 2010 at 02:36 PM
We dodged two local storms yesterday in Bayview, Southold, (they moved south of us) but last night at dusk we had several micro-bursts but no hail and some torrential rains until 9 pm.
Posted by: Dan McGurn | July 22, 2010 at 04:17 PM
Lenn,
The Atlantic is definately warmer this year than last. And it is playing out in the fishing season as well. There are LOTS of Yellowfin tuna already in the local area. They are here about a month early. They follow the warm water.
Posted by: Dan | July 22, 2010 at 07:27 PM
Hail is usually a very localized event.
There is some history of hail on the North Fork.
We had such an event on June 29, 2003 that devastated our vineyards. The hail stones were golf ball sized. At that time I inquired with others and the late Ray Blum had told me that he had such an event as well a few years before that.
The devastation, if the stones are large enough to injure the bark, is not limited to the season when the storm occurs. It is actually worse the following year. We estimated that we lost in excess of 2000 vines in 2004. Also the yield in 2004 was even lower than the reduced yield in 2003, such that we had to purchase fruit, a rare occurrence at Paumanok.
So while hail is rare, it is not uncommon.
Posted by: Charles Massoud | July 23, 2010 at 10:06 AM
BTW - No damage in Mattituck, but we did have a brief note of hail during an overnight storm on Friday. They were very small and only lasted a few minutes, but the thunderstorm carried on for about an hour from 4 AM to 5 AM.
Posted by: Jared S. | July 26, 2010 at 07:51 AM
Thanks for the updates, everyone. Keep us posted on weather events, please!
Posted by: Lenn Thompson | July 26, 2010 at 09:09 PM