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The brutal heatwave that hit the Pacific Northwest in June devastated several farms in Washington that grow sweet onions, with some seeing nearly all of their crops ruined.
Scientists say the extreme heat event was due to climate change. Onions can thrive in warm weather, but when the temperature hit 120 degrees, Fernando Enriquez Sr. of Enriquez Farms in Walla Walla saw that the tops of his onions were blistered and baked. By the next day, the thousands of onions in the field that hadn t been harvested were ruined, as were most of the seeds that would have been used to plant next year s crop. There was nothing we could save, he told