1930-1939 — Dust Bowl, TX and OK Panhandles                                   —     68

Compiled by Wayne Blanchard; last edit 2-24-2025 for upload to: http://www.usdeadlyevents.com/

 — 68  NWSFO, Amarillo TX. “TX and OK Panhandles Top 10 Weather Events…20th Cent.”

Narrative Information

NOAA: “Dust Bowl, 1930s.  An ecological and human disaster caused by the impact of years of drought on misused farmland throughout 100 million acres of the Great Plains. The Dust Bowl, which occurred during the Great Depression, indelibly changed the lives of every Plains resident at the time, and has continued to impact land use practices today. The Dust Bowl is often referred to as “The Black Blizzard” and “Black Roller” due to the reduction of visibility to a few feet in dust storms. The climate event forced the migration of hundreds of thousands of families to other states, looking for a better situation. This was the subject of John Steinbeck’s classic tale, The Grapes of Wrath.”  (“NOAA’s Top U.S. Weather, Water and Climate Events of the  20^th Century.”)

Source

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “NOAA’s Top U.S. Weather, Water and Climate Events of the  20^th Century.” NOAA News, 12-13-1999. Accessed 11-15-2017 at: http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories/s334c.htm