Tropical storm Rosa brought three to six inches of rain to Baja California and Sonora state on Monday, causing some flooding in the area. This region of Mexico is currently producing asparagus and supplies are expected to increase in the next week or two. Bram Hulshoff with Caborca-based Desert Farms reports that heavy winds have caused some damage to asparagus plants. “More wind and rain seem to be coming, so for now we just need to wait and see how it plays out.”
Flooding in Caborca. Photo credit: Bram Hulshoff with Desert Farms.
Temperature drop
From Northern Mexico, the storm moved northwest to Arizona. “A fair amount of rain was predicted here,” says Pat Ramirez with Carb Americas out of Kingman, AZ. “However, all I’ve seen so far are lots of cloud cover and temperatures that dropped about 23 degrees since Sunday,” he added. Rosa started as a hurricane, but by the time it made landfall it had downgraded to a tropical storm. “A hurricane could have knocked out the crops in Northwestern Mexico, but Rosa is not the monster it was predicted to be.”
Clouds have slowed down crop growth
Oscar Trujillo with Bridges Organic Produce reports that the company’s growers haven’t had any issues. “The clouds have slowed down the crops slightly for a couple of days, but there is no damage to report,” he added. Trujillo was at a farm in Hermosillo over the weekend and everything was looking great.
Southern California blessed with rain
“Tropical storm Rosa blessed us with a nice amount of rain,” said Andrew Walsh with Vida Fresh out of Morro Bay, CA. “Our area usually gets affected by the late-season hurricanes, so we are on heightened alert now through November. We have developed ways to mitigate the hurricane pressure and any storm up to 100 miles per hour causes very little damage but increases our cost of labor to prepare and recover,” he shared.