10 Facts about Dust Bowl

Saturday, February 4th 2017. | History


Facts about Dust Bowl highlight the period of severe dust storms, which occurred in United States. The period is also known as the Dirty Thirties for it took place in 1930s. The disaster mainly affected the prairies in Canada and agriculture and ecology of United States. The phenomenon was caused by the dryland farming method and severe level of draught.  It took placed in three waves of 1934, 1936 and 1939 until 1940. Let us find out the complete details about Dust Bowl in the following post below:

Facts about Dust Bowl 1: the drought

The people who lived in the high plains regions had to face the drought for at least 8 years.

Facts about Dust Bowl 2: the farming method

The failure of the farming method conducted by the farmers in that decade led into the dust bowl phenomenon. The top soil of Great Plains was deeply plowed by the farmers for agriculture. See facts about disasters here.

Dust Bowl Arizona

Dust Bowl Arizona

Facts about Dust Bowl 3: the deep-rooted grasses

The deep-rooted grasses, which lived at the top soil of Great Plains, were removed by the farmers so that they could conduct farming. Thus, the moisture and soil were not naturally trapped by the grasses for they had been eliminated. When the high winds and drought came, the soil was spread out.

Facts about Dust Bowl 4: the arid grassland

The farmers had the intention to transform the arid grassland into the farming land due to the development of farming equipment and mechanization. The combined harvesters as well as gasoline tractors were widely used by the farmers.

Dust Bowl Facts

Dust Bowl Facts

Facts about Dust Bowl 5: the precipitation level

The arid grassland only received around 250 mm or 10 inches of precipitation level per year.

Facts about Dust Bowl 6: the soil to dust

Since the soil was not trapped by the natural deep-rooted grasses, it was turned into dust. The sky was blackened due to the wind mixed with dust.

Dust Bowl

Dust Bowl

Facts about Dust Bowl 7: the black blizzard

The term black blizzard was coined during the period to call the choking billow of dust. People also called it as black rollers. Get facts about Cyclone Pam here.

Facts about Dust Bowl 8: the moving dust

The dust also moved due to the prevailing winds. It reached Washington DC and New York City.

Dust Bowl Image

Dust Bowl Image

Facts about Dust Bowl 9: the visibility

The visibility was declined rapidly at 3.3 feet to 1 meter in the Plains.

Facts about Dust Bowl 10: the term Dust Bowl

The term Dust Bowl was coined by the Kansas City news editor named Edward Stanley.

Facts about Dust Bowl

Facts about Dust Bowl

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