In the Monthly Weather Review for April, 1880, two pages were devoted to listing dust storms over the Trans-Mississippi West. The Wellington, Kan., station reported on the drought period April 2-27, 1880, that there were "numerous gales, accompanied with sand and dust. . . ."

The year 1883 is usually thought of as marking the early stage of the favorable crop cycle and the boom of the 1880's in the Trans-Mississippi West, but the Monthly Weather Review offered the following discouraging listings by dates of sand or dust storms.

DUST storms are among the natural phenomena of the Great Plains. They are a part of the economy of nature and are not in themselves necessarily abnormal; at least, not in the sense in which the subject was exploited during the drought decade of the 1930's.

Flatland winds picked up the topsoil and blew it into enormous dust storms that eroded farms and deva stated the region (figures 4.1 and 4.2). Hundreds of thousands of destitute “Dust Bowl refugees” collected their meager belongings and moved to California looking for work. The Dust Bowl was caused by misuse of a fragile ecosystem.

A postcard view of a huge wall of dust approaching a farm during the Dust Bowl period. The photograph was possibly taken in Ford County, Kansas. Creator: Stovall Studio

In the 1930s, drought covered virtually the entire Plains for almost a decade (Warrick, 1980). The drought’s direct effect is most often remembered as agricultural. Many crops were damaged by deficient rainfall, high temperatures, and high winds, as well as insect infestations and dust storms that accompanied these conditions.

Aerial view of the beginning of a dust storm over the prairie lands east of Denver. Northerly winds are removing topsoil and then the clouds of dust were raised as high as 16,000 feet by colliding southerly winds.

A dust storm, also called a sandstorm, is a meteorological phenomenon common in arid and semi-arid regions. [1] Dust storms arise when a gust front or other strong wind blows loose sand and dirt from a dry surface.

This undated photograph captures a large dust storm about to hit this family's homestead. These storms were frequent occurrences in western Kansas during the 1930s Dust Bowl. Date: Around 1935

The southwest corner of the state was one of the hardest hit areas during the Dust Bowl. Dust storms, such as this one, rolled over the the southern Great Plains from 1932-1936, removing top soil from agricultural lands and prompting important changes in agricultural practice.