diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index bfd8073..10c0175 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -26,7 +26,7 @@ classifiers = [
 dynamic = ["version"]
 dependencies = [
     "cftime==1.6.3",
-    "h5netcdf==1.3.0",
+    "h5netcdf== 1.3.0, ==1.2.0 ; python_version < '3.9'",
     "xarray==2024.3.0",
     "rioxarray==0.15.0",
     "zarr==2.17.2",