Science
After a Drought Last Year, Ohio Farmers Wished for Rain. Now Downpours Are Destroying Their Crops
The variation in weather—extreme drought one year, flash flooding the next—has made it nearly impossible for small farmers to plan their growing seasons.

By Theo Peck-Suzuki
August 16, 2025

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His southeast Ohio property—the aptly named Creekside Farm—was getting more rain than anyone in living memory could recall. Tomcho, who logs daily rainfall for the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail & Snow Network (CoCoRaHS), measured the total downpour at 4.28 inches in one hour. A calculator offered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration told him it was a one-in-a-thousand-year flood.

“My hope is that that’s correct,” Tomcho said with a laugh. “You know, we’ve been getting hundred-year floods like every three years.”

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“I had several people say something last year … like, ‘Oh, you should be farming cactus,’” Klaunig said. “Honestly, there’s a part of me that wants to be like, ‘Yeah, good thing I didn’t farm cactus this year, huh?’”

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“It would be one thing if it’s one crazy year that’s an aberration, and you just don’t make that much that year, so you hunker down and the next year, you make up for it. And then you put aside money and put in infrastructure for the next time you have a crazy year,” Klaunig said. “But you can’t do it when it’s every year.”

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