The s drought aided in creating the conditions for horrific locust swarms that devastated the West. The s drought took a serious toll on settlers trying to practice dry farming on the high plains, led to a reopening of the frontier through depopulation, and to the Reclamation Act and the increasing involvement of the federal government in the settling of the West.
As described in 'The Way to the West', by Elliot West university of New Mexico Press, , by the middle of the Nineteenth Century the Plains were already feeling the impact of ever larger numbers of humans.
In the preceding decades the Indian population had increased as they moved onto the Plains in the face of the westward expansion of European settlement. Indians made this decision during an unusually wet period when grasses were high, bisons abundant, and a switch to a horse and hunting-based lifestyle seemed viable. At the same time European emigrants were heading across the Plains bound for the West accompanied by large numbers of horses, mules and oxen.
The U. Army had also spread across the region. This peopling of the Plains greatly impacted the bison through an increased competition for resources. During drought the bison would move to the river valleys where grasses would still survive.
But these valleys now also were home to Indian camps and the emigrants headed West and their animals, all for the same reason of better water supply. From the mid s to the mid s the West and Plains were struck by a severe drought. Years ago David Stahle of the University of Arkansas had used tree ring analyses to suggest that, in Texas, this was the worst drought to strike in the last years, worse than the Dust Bowl drought.
As shown in Figure 1 the rain gauge data for this time is very sparse and cannot be used to really discern a drought. However the new and complete tree ring data in the North American Drought Atlas developed by Ed Cook of LDEO , also shown, make clear that this was a time of unusually severe and widespread drought. Figure 1 also shows the simulations of the drought generated within climate model simulations conducted at LDEO. The model was forced by historical observed sea surface temperatures SSTs.
Amazingly enough the simulated Civil War drought bears a clear resemblance to that which occurred. Given that SST observations from ships only began in by American ships and in by European ships , and are quite sparse for decades to come, this model result is quite remarkable. It testifies to the methodology used developed by Alexey Kaplan at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory to reconstruct global SST data sets using sparse in time and space data.
Site Section. Historical Drought. On This Page. Drought Throughout History Drought is a normal climate pattern that has occurred in varying degrees of length, severity, and size throughout history. Droughts in the 20th- and 21st-Century United States.
Key Takeaways. In any given year between and , on average, around 14 percent of the U. The three longest drought episodes in the U. The Dust Bowl era of the s remains the benchmark drought and extreme heat event in the U.
Looking Forward. Dry conditions are expected to become more common across central North America and the U. Southwest as the globe warms. But as much as climate change might exacerbate it, periods of drought have been common in American history.
Here are some of the most devastating droughts this country has faced. Also known as the "Dirty Thirties," the Dust Bowl period was the most destructive drought the United States has ever faced. Poor soil management practices made matters worse; without native prairie grasses or cover crops to keep soil in place, the Great Plains quite literally turned to dust and blew away in enormous dust storms dubbed "black rollers" or "black blizzards.
This information can be used proactively to improve societal preparedness and reduce the economic and societal damage caused by future drought events. In , precipitation and flooding reached historic levels in the Missouri River Basin. According to the January 21, , U. Drought Monitor, moderate to extreme drought covers 9. According to the December 26, , U. Drought Monitor, moderate to extreme drought covers According to the March 7, , U.
Early 21st century U. Published August 22,
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