Europe’s Dry Spring Raises Fears for Wheat and Barley Harvests

Farms across wide swaths of Europe are parched after an unusually dry spring, evidence of the increasing threat of climate change to homegrown grains.

The sunny stretch follows a winter marked by long periods of low rain and snowfall in key crop-producing regions. Total precipitation in Europe from February through April was below long-term averages, according to data from the University of Maine’s Climate Change Institute.