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The Dust Bowl was the result of a period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the American and Canadian prairies during the 1930s. The phenomenon was caused by a combination of natural factors (severe drought ) and human-made factors: a failure to apply dryland farming methods to prevent wind erosion , most ...
Black Sunday is a particularly severe dust storm that occurred on April 14, 1935, as part of the Dust Bowl in the United States. [1] It was one of the worst dust storms in American history and caused immense economic and agricultural damage. [ 2 ]
This further lead to the vicious cycle of reduced evaporation and decreased rainfall all through the spring of 2012. While the summer of 2011 was the second-warmest (74.5 °F (23.6 °C)) in U.S. history after the Dust Bowl era of 1936 74.6 °F (23.7 °C) the summer of 2012 was the third-warmest at (74.4 °F (23.6 °C)).
The effects of the Dust Bowl in Dallas, South Dakota, May 1936. The shift from mixed subsistence farming to commodity crops and livestock began in the late 19th century. New capital market systems and the railroad network began the trend towards larger farms that employed fewer people per acre.
The Great Plains Shelterbelt was a project to create windbreaks in the Great Plains states of the United States, that began in 1934. [1] President Franklin D. Roosevelt initiated the project in response to the severe dust storms of the Dust Bowl, which resulted in significant soil erosion.
"Four extensive droughts developed in the Great Plains area between 1930 and 1940, causing widespread dust storms, agricultural failure, poverty, unemployment and devastation to the nation's economy."
Several states, however, were worse affected when the 1936 North American heat waves and drought spells developed that year and reset records across those areas. [ 2 ] The drought might have covered between 70% and 86% percent of North America according to research studies, multiples of which set the coverage closer to the latter.
Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace (left) with Will W. Alexander, appointed to head the Resettlement Administration (December 22, 1936). The main focus of the RA was to build relief camps in California for migratory workers, especially refugees from the drought-struck Dust Bowl of the Southwest. [4]