During the 1930s, dust storms ravaged the Great Plains.
The worst of these became known as Black Sunday.
When did Black Sunday happen?
Just how bad was it?
In the early part of the 20th Century, over-farming, poor soil conservation techniques, and excessive
livestock grazing had created a dangerous situation.
The topsoil of the Great Plains region had been stripped of its nutrients, as well as
the natural vegetation that had once held the soil in place.
Then, 1930 saw the first year of what would eventually be an eleven year drought, in which
precipitation (in the form of rainfall, snowfall, and other forms of moisture) was just a fraction
of the normal levels.
These factors combined to dehydrate the soil and turn it into a fine, powdery dust.
The wind picked up large amounts of this dust and generated massive dust storms which swept
across the plains.
The storms could reach more than 10,000 feet in height and produce winds from 50 to 80
miles per hour.
The storms came to be known as “black blizzards”.
The dust storms began in the early 1930s and continued to progress in severity and in number
as the decade wore on.
In 1932, there were at least fourteen major dust storms, by 1935 there were more than
forty, and 1937 saw more than seventy.
Historical records of the era were not kept accurately, and some speculate that there
may have been more than one hundred dust storms in one year.
The worst of these dust storms occurred on April 14, 1935.
The storm blew away an estimated 300 million tons of topsoil in just a few days.
The sky became so filled with dirt, that the sun could not be seen.
Some witnesses described the event as “a wall of dirt that the eyes could not penetrate”.
This storm became known as “Black Sunday”.
The dust storms affected more than just the Great Plains region.
Eastern cities such as Chicago, New York City, Boston, and Washington DC also experienced
these massive storms.
The skies became so dark that street lights were needed during the day time, and there
are even reports that the snow was red in Boston (because the snow was mixing with the
soil from a dust storm).
Even sailors in the Atlantic Ocean report finding as much as a quarter-inch of dust
on the decks of their ships from these massive storms.
Citizens across the nation lived in fear of when the next dust storm would come.
As the events became much more commonplace, many learned to recognize the origin of the
dust storm by the color of its dirt.
Brown dust storms were from Kansas or Nebraska, gray from Texas, and red dust storms were
from Oklahoma.
By the late 1930s, the dust storms began to reduce in number.
Increased use of soil conservation methods, as well as much needed rainfall, helped to
bring the dust storms to an end.
However, the damage that had been done was irreparable.
Scientists estimate that roughly 30 billion tons of the most nutrient-rich topsoil in
the world had simply blown away.