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1934: Massive dust storm strikes Eastern US cities

1934: Massive dust storm strikes Eastern US cities

Author: AccuWeather May 12, 2022 Duration: 3:02
This Date in Weather History
History
Newspapers and radio stations East of the Mississippi on the morning of May 12, 1934 carried ominous messages and headlines of a thickening black cloud of chocking dust and dirt moving out of the Great Plains states. The cloud would envelope the Mid-west and then Eastern states on May 12, turning mid-day sunlight into an eerie darkness, that seemed like night in many major cities. What happened? Actually, the causes can be traced back decades. Favorable weather conditions in the from 1900 to the 1920s with significant rainfall and relatively moderate winters, encouraged increased population and farming in the Great Plains. But the region entered an unusually dry period in the summer of 1930.  During the next decade, the Northern Plains suffered four of their driest years in almost 100 years. When this severe drought hit the Great Plains region in the 1930s, it resulted in erosion and loss of topsoil because of farming practices at the time. The drought dried the topsoil and over time it became reduced to a powdery consistency. Native high grasses that held the soil in place had been plowed under to make room for expanding crop lands, so when high winds that occur on the plains picked up the topsoil massive dust clouds and dust storms occurred, giving rise to the term Dust Bowl. The continuous dry weather caused crops to fail, leaving the plowed fields exposed to wind erosion. The fine soil of the Great Plains was easily picked up and carried east by strong winds. In November 1933, a very strong dust storm stripped topsoil from South Dakota farmlands in just one of a series of severe dust storms that year. But beginning on May 9, 1934, a strong, several days dust storm removed massive amounts of Great Plans soil in one perhaps the worst storm of the Dust Bowl.  The dust clouds first blew all the way to Chicago, where they deposited 12 million pounds of dust. By May 12, 1934, the same storm reached cities to the east, such as Cleveland, Buffalo, Boston, New York City and Washington, D. C. turning day to night and chocking millions of people as dirt all the way from the plains states was deposited more than 1000 miles away on the streets and in the homes of major cities.

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Every day has a story written in the wind and rain, and This Date in Weather History uncovers those narratives. With AccuWeather Meteorologist Evan Myers as your guide, this daily podcast connects the present to pivotal moments where weather dramatically altered the course of events. You might hear about a forgotten blizzard that stranded a city, a hurricane that redirected a war, or a simple shift in the breeze that allowed a historic discovery. It’s more than just a list of facts; it’s a look at how the atmosphere has been a relentless and fascinating character in the human drama. Each brief episode offers a specific, grounded tale, revealing how the climate has shaped cultures, economies, and personal lives in ways we often overlook. Tune in for a thoughtful blend of meteorology and historical context, delivered with the authority of AccuWeather. This podcast turns the calendar into a map of atmospheric intrigue, reminding us that the past is always present in the sky above.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 50

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This Date in Weather History
Podcast Episodes
1921: Cloudburst causes 10' of flooding in Pueblo, CO [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 2:14
What started out as just another day in June in Colorado in 1921, rapidly turned into one that would never be forgotten in the town of Pueblo, Colorado. A cloudburst enveloped the town the afternoon of June 3, 1921. Duri…
1889: Flooding of the Potomac River [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:12
On June 2, 1889, the same heavy rains caused that had helped cause massive flooding in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, overwhelmed the South Fork Dam several days before, hit the Washington, DC, area. Most of the roads in DC at…
1965: Tropical system causes 30k fatalities in Bangladesh [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:44
The World Health Organization reports that nation of Bangladesh is especially vulnerable to tropical cyclones, known as hurricanes near the United States, because of its location at the triangular shaped head of the Bay…
1889: The Johnstown Flood [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 4:06
Johnstown, Pennsylvania, lies hard against the Conemaugh River in its deep valley in the western part of the state. Founded in 1770, it grew quickly as the Civil War approached, fortunes were made in iron, coal and steel…
1879: The Real-life inspiration for "The Wizard of Oz" [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 2:13
On May 30, 1879 the town of Irving, Kansas in the northeastern part of the state was a growing farm community with several hundred residents. Today, though Irving is a ghost town. On May 30, 1879, two tornados destroyed…
1914: Empress of Ireland and Storstad ships collide [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 3:08
From 1900 until 1914 almost 100,000 passengers in ocean liners, crossed the Atlantic to Canada, mainly from Great Britain. The main port of entry and embarkation to and from Canada was Quebec City, on the St Lawrence Riv…
1880: 1' of rain falls in less than 2 hours in Brackettville, TX [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 2:24
Brackettville, the county seat of Kinney County in Texas, is on U.S. Highway 90 twenty-two miles northeast of the Rio Grande and 125 miles west of San Antonio. It is named after Oscar Brackett, who established the first…
2008: "Pneumonia Front" causes big temperature drops in Chicago [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:59
The term Pneumonia front, first coined by Milwaukee Weather Bureau Office in the 1960s, is used to describe a rare meteorological phenomenon observed on the western Lake Michigan shoreline during the warm season. These f…
1987: A fisherman is struck and killed by lightning [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:51
The number of people killed by lightning in recent years is a far cry from annual lightning deaths decades ago. In the 1940s, for instance, hundreds of people were killed each year by lightning. In 1943 alone, 432 people…

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