By Mary O’KEEFE

My dad’s birthday was a couple of days ago. He would have been 95; though he passed many years ago I can still hear his laugh in my son’s laughter. And I still see his Irish eyes in my grandson. It got me thinking about what life was like when Dad was born. 

My dad was born during the Dust Bowl. Iowa, where he was from, didn’t see the overwhelming drought conditions that the Great Plains states experienced but it was still devastating. And Dad was from a farming family, so drought affected everything. 

In the 1930s the southern Plains region of the U.S. was facing a drought known as the Dust Bowl. On  April 14, 1935, when Dad was almost 5, a dust storm occurred across the Central Plains. It was known as “Black Sunday.” 

A cold front dropped across the region on April 14 resulting in a massive dust storm that brought visibility down near zero and total darkness in the middle of the day. Dust storms were common in the ’30s due to the extreme drought but this day the storm seemed even worse.

At 2:39 p.m. a black cloud came in from the north, estimated at 500 to 600 feet high and moving at about 50 to 60 mph. The instant it struck almost total darkness set in. 

The following is a quote from the Weather Bureau logs: “‘The onrushing cloud, the darkness and the thick, choking dirt made this storm one of terror and the worst, while it lasted, ever known here.’ Some observers had seen hundreds of birds, geese, ducks and other kinds flying in front of the dust cloud. A number of dead small birds were found on the ground after the storm. The Red Cross established a relief setup for dust sufferers. The headquarters was in Liberal, Kansas. According to Red Cross officials, 17 deaths had been reported in Kansas from dust pneumonia and three died from dust suffocation. This was from the Weather Bureau log on April 24. Dust pneumonia resulted when lungs were filled with dust. Symptoms included a high fever, chest pains, coughing and breathing difficulties,” according to NOAA. 

More than half a million people were left homeless as a result of the Dust Bowl. Farm families lost their lands and homes due to the now-barren land, according to NOAA.

The Dust Bowl was caused by several economic and agricultural factors, including federal land policies, changes in regional weather, farm economic and other cultural factors. The Homestead Act of 1862 provided settlers with 160 acres of public land. Homestead was followed by the Kinkaid Act of 1904 and Enlarged Homestead Act of 1909, resulting in new and inexperienced farmers staking a claim. Many of the farmers lived by the superstition “Rain follows the plow.” 

“Emigrants, land speculators, politicians and even some scientists believed that homesteading and agriculture would permanently affect the climate of the semi-arid Great Plains region, making it more conducive to farming,” according to history.com.

There was a series of wet years when most of these new settlers began farming, which led to the misconception of the ecology of the area. Famers just kept moving through their acreage, planting in areas where irrigation would be impossible. 

But before the Dust Bowl, farmers were facing extreme ups and downs of the world of agriculture, especially at the end of the Great War in 1918. During WWI there was a huge demand for food, so farmers grew more and more until the war ended. Demand and prices began to go down and then, 10 years later, the Great Depression began. Wheat and corn prices plummeted. And not just in the high plains but other farming areas like Iowa.

In some areas of Iowa corn prices dropped to eight to 10 cents a bushel. In fact people began burning corn instead of coal during the winter months because it was cheaper.  

“Sometimes the countryside smelled like popcorn from all the corn burning in the kitchen stoves,” according to iowapbs.org.

The 1930s Dust Bowl stripped the topsoil from millions of acres. 

There have been a lot of changes to farming since 1930, but with the climate warming and more droughts experienced, some scientists are concerned we may be facing another Dust Bowl. 

“In a 2018 National Climate Assessment, U.S. scientists warned that under current warming scenarios, temperatures in the southern Great Plains could increase by 3.6 to 5.1 degrees F by 2050 and by 4.4 F to 8.4 F by 2100, compared to the 1976-2005 average. The region is projected to be hit by dozens more days with temperatures above 100 degrees F. Temperature increases are likely to be less severe in the northern part of the region, but the entire Great Plains is nevertheless expected to weather both more heatwaves and periods of extreme drought, according to the National Climate Assessment,” according to e360.yale.edu “As the Climate Warms, Could the US Face Another Dust Bowl?”

“When the soil contains a lot of moisture, incoming energy from the sun gets absorbed by the water as it turns from a liquid into a gas. But when the soil contains little water, that energy is converted directly into heat. The result is that droughts lead to more severe heatwaves, and those heatwaves in turn lead to drier conditions,” according to e360.yale.edu.

A 2020 study published in Nature found that present greenhouse gases could cause more frequent and longer Dust Bowl heatwaves. 

The more things change the more things stay the same. My dad was born in the era of the Dust Bowl, and my grandsons, one who is Dad’s namesake, were born into yet another, and perhaps more frequent and intense, Dust Bowl.  

To read an account of the Dust Bowl, visit:https://www.weather.gov/media/ddc/Black_Sunday_1935_april/scan0001.pdf.

Moving forward the weather looks pretty calm and warm. No rain is in sight but there is a bit of a marine layer expected this morning (Thursday) that should burn off by mid morning. 

On Friday we will see highs in the mid 80s; those temperatures will continue into Tuesday. There is a slight chance of showers – between 5% and 10%, –Thursday into Friday. Other than that the marine layer appears to be thinning through the week. 

Newspaper articles courtesy of the Kansas Heritage Center in Dodge City, from NOAA.