Tuesday, April 14, 2020

The Black Sunday Dust Storm of 1935

"Dust storm. It was conditions of this sort which forced many
 farmers to abandon the area. Spring 1935. New Mexico" - Dorothea Lange
(Wikipedia) Black Sunday refers to a particularly severe dust storm that occurred on April 14, 1935, as part of the Dust Bowl. It was one of the worst dust storms in American history and it caused immense economic and agricultural damage.
It is estimated to have displaced 300 million tons of topsoil from the prairie area in the US. On the afternoon of April 14, the residents of the Plains States were forced to take cover as a dust storm, or "black blizzard", blew through the region.
The storm hit the Oklahoma Panhandle and Northwestern Oklahoma first, and moved south for the remainder of the day. It hit Beaver around 4:00 p.m., Boise City around 5:15 p.m., and Amarillo, Texas, at 7:20 p.m.
The conditions were the most severe in the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles, but the storm's effects were felt in other surrounding areas. Continued

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