COLUMBIA COUNTY, Pa. — Columbia County became the latest added to the state's drought watch.
That isn't a surprise to farmers who say this year's dry weather hurt their crops.
Inside Rohrbach's Farm Market near Catawissa, fresh produce from its fields was on display and customers were willing to deal with the chilly cold rain to get some.
But what can't be seen is the hard work it took this year to grow these apples, potatoes, pumpkins and squash.
Owner Denise Bosworth says it was a tough year for her farm, starting with losing the peach crop to a spring frost.
"Then we went right into weeks and weeks without any rain and we had brand new strawberry plants in the ground, all of our pumpkins in the ground so we had to do a lot of almost like hand-to-hand irrigation,” said Bosworth.
This map from the state department of environmental protection shows Columbia joins 29 other counties currently under a drought watch.
Bobby and Sara Hricko at Green's Fruit Farm near Elysburg say their season also got off to a rough start, frost killed off some of their apple buds.
"But then later on because of the drought, the remaining fruit didn't get as big as they should have because of the drought so that was kind of a one two punch so to speak,” said Bobby.
The farms we spoke with say this rain won't have any impact on its current crops which have already been harvested, however, any rain is a good thing during a drought.
"Because it was such a dry year, the water table's a little lower than it should. So any rain that we get is going to help us out in the long term,” said Bobby.
"The rain is sort of a welcome sight because it's also going to bring some moisture into the ground that we really need,” said Bosworth.