Is The Dust Bowl Happening Again?

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In the 1930s, the US experienced what has been called its greatest ecological disaster, when the dust bowl ravaged the midwest, eroding topsoil, destroying crops, and displacing millions. As climate change exacerbates drought across much of the US in places like Phoenix and the larger Colorado River basin, damaging dust storms and haboobs are becoming more common, leading many experts to ask whether we might be heading into another dust bowl?

In this episode of Weathered, we speak to a leading expert about this growing threat, the various hazards that dust storms pose to our health, and how best to prepare ourselves and stay out of harm's way.

Weathered is a show hosted by meteorologist Maiya May and produced by Balance Media that helps explain the most common natural disasters, what causes them, how they’re changing, and what we can do to prepare.

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Thank you Margaret A. Carghill Philanthropies for supporting PBS.

[drpattiethomas]

In 2005, in Phoenix AZ, I was trying to get home before a dust storm arrived. I had heard on radio that it was coming. About a mile from my apartment, I could see the wall coming at me, but I decided I would try to persevere since I was so close to home. I did hit the wall, but it was wet, not dry. Suddenly mud was all over my windshield. I turned on my wipers and was barely able to make to the side of the road to wait for it to pass. My car was completely covered with mud in less than a minute. It was a very weird feeling to be in a mud storm.

[ScottKent]

Baghdad 2004...oddly enough the sand over there is so fine that the heat from large paved areas caused the storm to lift up about 10-12 feet. You could walk under the storm and look up through it as it worked as a kind of giant orange filter.

[gqtpi]

People should also learn that pulling over, is pulling over to the far right or left not stop in the middle, and parking, which happens in white-out conditions so often. People should also learn that being in a car has different visibility than trucks and semis that extra two/ten feet of elevation make a huge difference.

[Killinemkid]

The thrill some people get when they talk about the thing they are passionate about is always beautiful to see

[mareamoseley]

it’s interesting that Arizona was mentioned almost as an afterthought, yet all of the haboob footage was shot here.

[patrickfitzgerald]

So the answer to the question posed is no. My home state of Arizona is in the middle of its wettest summer ever, yet we are still experiencing large dust storms, caused primarily by poor land use practices and over-development. Human stupidity and greed will, sadly, never end.

[F_L_U_X]

I think the worst haboob I've been in was the one here in AZ back in 2008. We used to get them almost every year but they've died down in terms of numbers. It's hard to tell on camera, but when you're in the thick of it, it's a pretty dark red color...and if you're on the road and in a car, you're pulled over, clenching your cheeks, waiting for someone to hit you.

[Doug]

For a long time, I didn't realize the hidden meaning of sand storms and cornfields featured in the movie Interstellar. But instead of looking for the equation of anti-gravity, the practices in regenerative agriculture such as no-till cultivation, cover crops mix, and controlled grazing are solutions available today to mitigate the impact of soil degradation and erosion across the farmlands.

[toniatchison]

I literally just read an article about this. I know overuse of the aquifer is contributing, but the other article also said people in this part of the country are planting more native grasses to help reduce this problem.

[Zeyev]

We arrived at Minot AFB in August 1962. A few days after we got there we looked outside on what had been a pleasant day to see a wall of dust bearing down on us. We hurriedly closed all the windows but the dust got into the house anyway. Also, we were there two winters and experienced "snirt, " a combination of snow and dirt that happens when the wind is strong enough to pick up dust from the fields but there is not enough snow to trap it. It's not a pretty thing to see brown snow falling. And we once had a mud storm when dust in the atmosphere mixed with a light rain to fall as dirty water.

[NealDurbin]

I used to live in Lubbock when I went to grad school at Texas Tech University. We had a big haboob in 2011 right after I got there. It hit right as I got to my car to go home and I had to sit for 45 minutes before I could leave the parking lot.

Lubbock also has what we called hazeboobs, dust storms that gradually got bad instead of with the wall of dust, but those happen almost daily. In Lubbock, there is more dust in the air than moisture, and it rains mud because of it.

[TacoAmigo]

I’m used to driving in dust storms and knowing when to stop when a very strong one hits. It never gets old and I love the cool air it brings afterwards 😩

[JosephFuller]

I was in Khartoum, Sudan, walking from the masjid to my apartment when a dust storm blew through. When it started, it got dark so fast that it caught me off guard. The wind whipped the sand through the air so fast that it stung my bare skin when it hit me. It felt like I was going to be blown over so I walked while leaning into the gusts. I tried to keep my face covered but some of the dust just blew through the cloth anyways. When I got back to the apartment, sand was in little piles under the door and around the windows. It was an amazing experience but a bit frightening for a few moments.

[sheriherrick]

I just cannot get enough of this channel! They're short enough to keep interest but packed full of information that is easy to follow and understand. Keep up the great work!!!

[owenwhitman]

I spent some time in Eastern Kuwait. Dust storms were fairly common place. One in particular stands out:
It was a beautiful (though HOT) day with no wind, clear blue skies and a blazing sun. I got a radio call from one of my coworkers advising me to look west. Sure enough, there was no west left to look at. A towering black wall, probably a mile high, spanned from horizon to horizon. We took appropriate action to inform everyone else to move to shelter. Then, just as the last group had reported that they were secure, a blast of wind swept across us. Sand in the air stung exposed skin like a thousand angry bees. Day turned to night. The sun, high in the Arabic sky, was undetectable. Then, in just a few moments, the wind was gone.
It was dark for hours, but the light gradually returned. Around 4pm one of the younger guys commented that the moon was particularly bright tonight. You should've seen his face when I explained to him that he was looking at the sun. We spent almost 8 hours frozen in place. Needless to say, our relief was late that day.

[junglelane]

The saharan dust that crosses the Atlantic also suppresses hurricane activity during peak season sometimes.

[Quagthistle]

In western Kansas, we occasionally had dust storms roll through when I was young. They smelled terrible, and you DEFINITELY don't want to be caught out in them. The dust would make you cough horribly for the rest of the day. As soon as you saw them coming, you'd just run home (or back into the school), and make sure all windows were closed. They usually faded in about an hour.

[benjaminsteele]

I've always been in town when they hit. There were a bunch of valley fever (fungal infection) stories in the media when I moved, so every time it would happen it would be a little bit of a rush to find a water source to wet down a bandana when I got off the train or left my apartment. Since I wasn't driving, they were kind of cool to watch from inside.

[t.d]

Just re-watched film Interstellar… Though they never talked about humanity’s responsibility (my only complaint about the film), they showed dust storms and that the damage they were causing was ruining people’s lungs and on track to suffocating those left living…

[johnwang]

Had agricultural practices and social structure not have improved since the 30's then we would already have suffered the consequences of the dust bowl era several times over in the last few years.