If strawberries have been missing from your grocery store lately, the weather is a big reason.

Heavy rain soaked California's Oxnard and Santa Maria strawberry-growing regions in late October and early November.

Strawberries are delicate, and wet fields make the fruit harder to pick and easier to spoil, which stalled harvests.

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Why California rain affects stores nationwide

Produce supplier Markon, in an update specifically naming its Oxnard and Santa Maria growing regions as impacted, said California growers were expected to meet only about 50% of demand on orders shipping in early November, with estimated losses of 50% to 60% of the affected crop.

Strawberries may feel seasonal, but California grows them for much of the country.

According to the USDA, 90% of U.S. strawberries are grown in California, so one wet stretch there can thin out shelves coast to coast — which is exactly what showed up at an H-E-B in Texas, where a sign in late October warned shoppers of a shortage until further notice.

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(MORE: Super El Niño nearing a record, and the weather pattern looks like it)

How long will the strawberry shortage last?

Production is now shifting toward Florida and Mexico, though neither can fully backfill the gap right away: Mexico’s new season has started but isn’t expected to hit full volume until late November or early December.

Supply could stay tight into Thanksgiving as a result, but that timeline could stretch further.

NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center puts a nearly 80% probability on a strong to very strong El Niño through winter 2026–27. It's a pattern that typically brings wetter conditions to Central and Southern California — raising the odds of more storm-driven disruptions to Oxnard, Santa Maria and other growing regions in the months ahead.

(COMPLETE COVERAGE: Super El Niño)

Faiza Mohammed is a meteorologist intern at weather.com. She studied geography and worked with the Weather Dawgs team at the University of Georgia. She also received her master's in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences from the Georgia Institute of Technology.