"near lakes, rivers, and bodies of water. Another form of severe weather is drought, which is a prolonged period of persistently dry weather (that is, absence of precipitation). Although droughts do not develop or progress as quickly as other forms of severe weather, their effects can be just as deadly; in fact, droughts are classified and measured based upon these effects. Droughts have a variety of severe effects; they can cause crops to fail, and they can severely deplete water resources, sometimes interfering with human life. A drought in the 1930s known as the Dust Bowl affected 50 million acres"
"the prairies of Canada and the United States during the 1930s, and later to describe the area in the United States that was most affected by the storms, including western Kansas, eastern Colorado, northeastern New Mexico, and the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles. The ""black blizzards"" started in the Eastern states in 1930, affecting agriculture from Maine to Arkansas. By 1934 they had reached the Great Plains, stretching from North Dakota to Texas, and from the Mississippi River Valley to the Rocky Mountains. ""The Dust Bowl"" (as an area) received its name following the disastrous ""Black Sunday"" storm in April 1935,"
"when reporter Robert L. Geiger referred to the region as ""The Dust Bowl"" in his account of the storm. Cattle farming and sheep ranching had left much of the West devoid of natural grass and shrubs to anchor the soil, and over-farming and poor soil stewardship left the soil dehydrated and lacking in organic matter. During a massive drought that hit the United States in the 1930s, the lack of rainfall, snowfall, and moisture in the air dried out the top soil in most of the country's farming regions. The destruction caused by the dust storms, and especially by the"
"some states thanks to normal rainfalls returning to some portions of the United States. Dry conditions, however, increased again during 1989, affecting Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, eastern Nebraska, Kansas and certain portions of Colorado. The drought also affected Canada in certain divisions. The drought of 1988 became the worst drought since the Dust Bowl 50 years before in the United States; 2008 estimates put damages from the drought somewhere between $80 billion and almost $120 billion in damage (2008 USD). The drought of 1988 was so devastating that in later years it was compared against Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and against"
"1930s Dust Bowl in the United States, for example, led to the flight of 2.5 million people from the Plains by 1940, many to the new cities in the West. It is estimated that as many as one out of every four residents in the Plains States left during the 1930s. More recently, drought in Syria from 2006-2011 has prompted a rural exodus to major urban centers. Massive influxes in urban areas, combined with difficult living conditions, have prompted some scholars to link the drought to the arrival of the Arab Spring in Syria. The terms are used in the"
"the cutting of government work budgets. During the Great Depression the Triangle, like much of the Canadian and American Prairies, was struck by the Dust Bowl in the 1930s. This was caused, in large part, by a decrease in precipitation as well as longstanding flawed farming practices that exacerbated aeolian soil erosion and dust storm activity. This includes the practice of leaving fields fallow, seen as necessary at the time to support agriculture in the given climate, as it was believed that exposed soil would better absorb and retain moisture. Measures undertaken in Alberta and Saskatchewan have since alleviated many"
"Unlike today, air conditioning was in the early stages of development and was therefore absent from houses and commercial buildings. Many of the deaths occurred in high-population-density areas of Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Toronto, and other urban areas. Farmers across the continent saw crop failure, causing corn and wheat prices to rise quickly. Droughts and heat waves were common in the 1930s. The 1930s (the Dust Bowl years) are remembered as the driest and warmest decade for the United States, and the summer of 1936 featured the most widespread and destructive heat wave to occur in the Americas"
"the Dust Bowl in the 1930s. Much of rural America has seen steady population decline since 1920. The Great Migration was the movement of millions of African Americans out of the rural Southern United States from 1914 to 1960. Most moved to large industrial cities, as well as to many smaller industrial cities.African-Americans moved as individuals or small groups. There was no government assistance. They migrated because of a variety of push and pull factors: In the years after WWII, the United States, as well as a number of other industrialized countries, experienced an unexpected sudden birth rate jump. During"
"from floods. The Southwest has the worst droughts; one is thought to have lasted over 500 years and to have decimated the Anasazi people. Large stretches of desert shrub in the west can fuel the spreads of wildfires. Although severe drought is rare, it has occasionally caused some major problems, such as those during the Dust Bowl (1931–1942), which coincided with the Great Depression. Farmland failed throughout the Plains, entire regions were virtually depopulated, and dust storms ravaged the land. More recently, the western US experienced widespread drought from 1999 to 2004. In terms of deaths from heatwaves, 7,415 losses"
"can lead to huge wildfires due to the drier-than-normal climate. Since 1900, the following ""dry years"" have had significantly below-average precipitation. The drought was so bad that ""a dry Sonoma was declared entirely unsuitable for agriculture"". This drought was preceded by the torrential floods of 1861–1862. This drought encouraged farmers to start using irrigation more regularly. Because of the fluctuation in California weather, the need for consistent water availability was crucial for farmers. This drought occurred during the infamous Dust Bowl period that ripped across the plains of the United States in the 1920s and 1930s. The Central Valley Project"
"and 1965: The Dust Bowl of the 1930s and the 1950s drought. Florida and the Pacific Northwest tend to be the opposite—warm AMO, more rainfall. Climate models suggest that a warm phase of the AMO strengthens the summer rainfall over India and Sahel and the North Atlantic tropical cyclone activity. Paleoclimatologic studies have confirmed this pattern—increased rainfall in AMO warmphase, decreased in cold phase—for the Sahel over the past 3,000 years. A 2008 study correlated the Atlantic Multidecadal Mode (AMM), with HURDAT data (1851–2007), and noted a positive linear trend for minor hurricanes (category 1 and 2), but removed when"
"seem to have had the most direct influence. This catastrophe intensified the economic impact of the Great Depression in the region. In 1935, many families were forced to leave their farms and travel to other areas seeking work because of the drought (which at that time had already lasted four years). The abandonment of homesteads and financial ruin resulting from catastrophic topsoil loss led to widespread hunger and poverty. Dust Bowl conditions fomented an exodus of the displaced from Texas, Oklahoma, and the surrounding Great Plains to adjacent regions. More than 500,000 Americans were left homeless. Over 350 houses had"
"of the soil ended up deposited in the Atlantic Ocean, carried by prevailing winds which were in part created by the dry and bare soil conditions itself. These immense dust storms—given names such as ""Black Blizzards"" and ""Black Rollers""—often reduced visibility to a few feet (around a meter). The Dust Bowl affected , centered on the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma, and adjacent parts of New Mexico, Colorado, and Kansas. Millions of acres of farmland became useless, and hundreds of thousands of people were forced to leave their homes; many of these families (often known as ""Okies"", since so many"
"of global warming. In dry areas, removing grass cover and going with a more natural vegetation for the area can reduce the impact of drought, since a significant amount of fresh water is used to keep lawns green. Droughts are periodic, alternating with floods over a series of years. The worst droughts in the history of the United States occurred during the 1930s and 1950s, periods of time known as 'Dust Bowl' years in which droughts lead to significant economic damages and social changes. In particular, relief and health agencies became overburdened and many local community banks had to close."
"During the Great Depression, the American government, without due process, deported between 1 and 2 million American citizens and legal residents of Mexican descent. This mass deportation, known as the Mexican Repatriation, took place from 1929 to 1939 and was empowered by panic of an alarming low unemployment rate sweeping over the United States at this time. The Dust Bowl was the name given to the Great Plains region devastated by drought in 1930s depression-ridden America. This triggered the migration of men, women and children seeking work, food and shelter making their way to California, hoping to find opportunity and"
"word ""Kansas"" was added below the seal in gold block lettering). It was first flown at Fort Riley by Governor Ben S. Paulen in 1927 for the troops at Fort Riley and for the Kansas National Guard. The Dust Bowl was a series of dust storms caused by a massive drought that began in 1930 and lasted until 1941. The effect of the drought was overshadowed by the plunging wheat prices and the financial crisis of the Great Depression. Many local banks were forced to close. Some farmers left the land but even larger numbers of unemployed men left the"
"including crop rotation, strip farming, contour plowing, terracing, and other improved farming practices. In 1937, the federal government began an aggressive campaign to encourage farmers in the Dust Bowl to adopt planting and plowing methods that conserved the soil. The government paid reluctant farmers a dollar an acre to practice the new methods. By 1938, the massive conservation effort had reduced the amount of blowing soil by 65%. The land still failed to yield a decent living. In the fall of 1939, after nearly a decade of dirt and dust, the drought ended when regular rainfall finally returned to the"
"The federal Agricultural Adjustment Act paid them to reduce production; prices rose and the distress was over, Short-term drought and long-term poor agricultural practices led to the Dust Bowl, when massive dust storms blew away the soil from large tracts of arable land and deposited it on nearby farms or even far-distant locations. The resulting crop failures forced many small farmers to flee the state altogether. Although the most persistent dust storms primarily affected the Panhandle, much of the state experienced occasional dusters, intermittent severe drought, and occasional searing heat. Towns such as Alva, Altus, and Poteau each recorded temperatures"
"for a few years in the 1970s. While the rest of the country was booming in the roaring twenties, Montana was in a drought. Montana was the only state in the union to have a decrease in population during that time. Though far removed from the center of the Dust Bowl, Hinsdale did see a few dust storms during the Great Depression. Times were tough and most of the settlers who toughed it out and stayed lived mostly by subsistence farming. The 1980s was a tough time in agriculture across the country. The community of Hinsdale suffered greatly as the"
"disaster. The dry soil was lifted by wind and blown into huge dust storms that blanketed entire towns, a phenomenon that continued for several years. Those who had lost their homes and livelihoods in the Dust Bowl were lured westward by advertisements for work put out by agribusiness in western states, such as California. The migrants came to be called Okies, Arkies, and other derogatory names as they flooded the labor supply of the agricultural fields, driving down wages, pitting desperate workers against each other. They came into competition with Mexican laborers, who were deported en masse back to their"
"for lowest monthly total precipitation and longest interval between measurable precipitation, for example, 55 days in a row without precipitation in Milwaukee. During the summer, two record-setting heat waves developed, similar to those of 1934 and 1936. The concurrent heat waves killed 4,800 to 17,000 people in the United States. During the summer of 1988, the drought led to many wildfires in forested western North America, including the Yellowstone fires of 1988. At its peak, the drought covered 45% of the United States. While covering less area than the Dust Bowl, which covered 70% of the United States, the drought"
"the late 1920s and created the infamous Dust Bowl. (Small cotton farmers in states such as Mississippi and Alabama suffered similar problems from the first major infestation of the boll weevil.) When the onset of the Great Depression created a national banking crisis, family farmers—usually heavily in debt—often had their mortgages foreclosed by banks desperate to shore up their balance sheets. In response, many farmers loaded their families and portable possessions into their automobiles and drove west. Taking Route 66 to Barstow or Los Angeles and crossing the Tehachapi or Tejon passes, they began new lives as fruit and vegetable"
"cultivation techniques produced what was known as the Dust Bowl in South Dakota and several other plains states. Fertile topsoil was blown away in massive dust storms, and several harvests were completely ruined. The experiences of the Dust Bowl, coupled with local bank foreclosures and the general economic effects of the Great Depression, resulted in many South Dakotans leaving the state. The population of South Dakota declined by more than 7% between 1930 and 1940. Economic stability returned with the U.S. entry into World War II in 1941, when demand for the state's agricultural and industrial products grew as the"
"to exceed profits and many farmers were forced to sell their land which was then rented to others or simply left abandoned. Dryland farming was common on the prairies though many farmers removed the native grasses that helped control erosion. In 1929 the national economy crashed leading to the Great Depression. In 1930 the weather turned dry beginning the most widespread and longest lasting drought in Colorado history, a period of time that would later be referred to as the ""Dust Bowl."" Dry weather, soil erosion, and a depressed economy led to a huge social upheaval felt across the entire"
"because of farming practices at the time. The drought dried the topsoil and over time it became friable, reduced to a powdery consistency in some places. Without the indigenous grasses in place, the high winds that occur on the plains picked up the topsoil and created the massive dust storms that marked the Dust Bowl period. The persistent dry weather caused crops to fail, leaving the plowed fields exposed to wind erosion. The fine soil of the Great Plains was easily eroded and carried east by strong continental winds. On November 11, 1933, a very strong dust storm stripped topsoil"
"distances from all warm ocean-derived atmospheric water sources. DRI addresses a multi-year drought that began in 1999 with cessation of its atmospheric component in 2004/2005 and many of its hydrological components in 2005. It was the worst drought for at least a hundred years in parts of the Canadian Prairies. According to Phillips (2002), for the western and central Canadian Prairies during 2001 and 2002, “… it was the worst of times. Even in the dust bowl of the 1930s, no single year between Medicine Hat, Kindersley and Saskatoon was drier than in 2001”. The drought affected agriculture, recreation, tourism,"
"unemployed Mexican citizens received one-way bus tickets to their home villages in Mexico. Farmers and ranchers were especially hard hit, as prices for cotton and livestock fell sharply. Beginning in 1934 and lasting until 1939, the Dust Bowl, an ecological disaster of severe wind and drought, caused an exodus from Texas and the surrounding plains, in which over 500,000 Americans were homeless, hungry and jobless. Thousands left the region forever to seek economic opportunities in California. For the majority of farmers who remained, the New Deal's Agricultural Adjustment Act was a crash program started in 1933 that in two weeks"
"in crop losses. The drought caused devastation comparable to that of Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005. In Canada, drought-related losses totalled $1.8 billion (in 1988 Canadian dollars). 1988–89 North American drought The North American Drought of 1988 ranks among the worst episodes of drought in the United States. This multi-year drought began in most areas in 1988 and continued into 1989 and 1990 (in certain areas). The drought caused $60 billion in damage ($ billion in United States dollars, adjusting for inflation). The drought occasioned some of the worst blowing-dust events since 1977 or the 1930s"
"fellow historian Donald Worster responded to his return visit to the Dust Bowl in the mid-1970s when he revisited some of the worst afflicted counties: In contrast with Worster's pessimism, historian Mathew Bonnifield argued that the long-term significance of the Dust Bowl was ""the triumph of the human spirit in its capacity to endure and overcome hardships and reverses."" The crisis was documented by photographers, musicians, and authors, many hired during the Great Depression by the federal government. For instance, the Farm Security Administration hired numerous photographers to document the crisis. Artists such as Dorothea Lange were aided by having"
"the continent from the desert southwest, whereas in most years advection of warm and humid air from the Gulf of Mexico is the rule; therefore, despite the extremely high temperatures, elevation of apparent temperature was not as severe as would be the case during the 1995 heat wave. The drought of 1988 ranks as the worst drought since the Dust Bowl, which occurred more than 50 years earlier. The damages in the United States as of 2008, adjusted for inflation, put damages from the drought between $80 billion and almost $120 billion. The state of Minnesota alone saw $1.2 billion"
"normal across the Pacific Northwest and western Great Lakes. Across the North Atlantic, the jet stream is stronger than normal, which directs stronger systems with increased precipitation towards Europe. Evidence suggests the jet stream was at least partly responsible for the widespread drought conditions during the 1930s Dust Bowl in the Midwest United States. Normally, the jet stream flows east over the Gulf of Mexico and turns northward pulling up moisture and dumping rain onto the Great Plains. During the Dust Bowl, the jet stream weakened and changed course traveling farther south than normal. This starved the Great Plains and"
"swept the soil and dust into the sky. This led to persistent dust storms that rivaled those during the Dust Bowl. The situation became so dire that the US government began distributing emergency feed supplies to desperate farmers. Some farmers resorted to feeding their animals prickly pear or molasses to keep them alive. In 1956, ""The New York Times"" reported that more than 100,000 Texans were receiving surplus “federal food commodities."" By the time the drought subsided in 1957, many counties across the region were declared federal drought disaster areas, including 244 of the 254 counties in Texas. On January"
"States is affected by a variety of natural disasters yearly. Although drought is rare, it has occasionally caused major disruption, such as during the Dust Bowl (1931–1942). Farmland failed throughout the Plains, entire regions were virtually depopulated, and dust storms ravaged the land. The Great Plains and Midwest, due to the contrasting air masses, see frequent severe thunderstorms and tornado outbreaks during spring and summer with around 1,000 tornadoes occurring each year. The strip of land from north Texas north to Kansas and Nebraska and east into Tennessee is known as Tornado Alley, where many houses have tornado shelters and"