It wasn’t a “black blizzard” from the ’30s, but there was an unsettling brown tint to the sky Tuesday, and the wind threatened to pull doors from hands.
Things got extreme enough the National Weather Service had to issue a dust storm warning.
“We’ve actually had a lot more of those this year. We don’t normally issue dust storm warnings,” said Jose Garcia, chief meteorologist at the weather service’s Amarillo office. “We’re up to four or five this year.”
And there could be more in the region’s future.
“In late April and early May, you can have strong winds and a few more cold fronts,” Garcia said. “This isn’t quite as normal to have as much dust caused by droughty conditions.”
Several experts think this won’t turn into another Dust Bowl, but recent weather conditions have challenged their faith.
“It’s about as tough as I’ve seen it. It could change tomorrow, but the prospects aren’t good,” said Bob Stewart, director of West Texas A&M University’s Dryland Agriculture Institute.
“It’s just not pretty. I’ve been on record many times, and I’m still on record today, we’re not going to have another Dust Bowl. But I tell you days like today make me sit back and say, ‘Do you know what you’re talking about?’”
And while the “Filthy Fifties” had a significant drought, which when combined with high winds made up the recipe for dust storms, the “Dirty Thirties” are the benchmark.
“In Amarillo, the worst year for storms was 1935, when they lasted a total of 908 hours. Seven times, from January to March, the visibility in Amarillo declined to zero; one of these complete blackouts lasted 11 hours. In another instance, a single storm raged for 3½ days,” according to the Texas State Historical Association’s website. “In 1932, there were 14 dust storms of regional extent; in 1933, 38; in 1934, 22; in 1935, 40; in 1936, 68; in 1937, 72; in 1938, 61; in 1939, 30.”
Automobiles and tractor engines were ruined by grit while people had to sweep out their homes, put towels in window and door gaps and dampened cloths on the mouths of babies, according to numerous historical accounts.
The Texas Panhandle is in its fourth year of drought and behind on precipitation by about half the normal total. It’s been the driest three years on record.
“Right now we can’t get any drier. We’ve had 1.16 inches, and that’s for four months,” Stewart said. “And the forecast for Saturday and Sunday is 93 degrees.”
The situation is a trying one.
“I’d like to say this is going to pass, and I’m sure it will,” said Louis Baumhardt, a research soil scientist at the Agricultural Research Service facility at Bushland, which was established in 1938 in response to the massive wind erosion of that decade. “I just don’t know when. Our soils are fragile, and they’re moving.”
And significant change could take a while.
“You get two years of drought, it takes two more to get back to normal,” Baumhardt said.
Some of the factors that could prevent a full-blown repeat of the Dust Bowl include modern tillage methods in farm fields and more grassland, such as that created by national grasslands and the Conservation Reserve Program.
“We have 2 million less crop acres in the region,” Stewart said.
Dust storms start as the wind speed increases at the soil surface until a particle of dirt moves across the surface.
“Some particles kind of vertically launch and fall forward. They impart energy to more particles then those go on,” Baumhardt said.
“If it gets into really high wind speeds gusting to 55 mph, they get into suspension. Look out the window now. Yeah, that’s it.”