Were the 1930s "Dust Bowl" Heatwaves Worse than Today?
Heatwaves in the Continental US (1880-2020) The Dust Bowl It's commonly believed that the heatwaves that hit the US in the 1930s were the worst in American History, at least since Europeans began colonizing the territory. And certainly they were terrible. The causes were due to a combination of natural phenomena as well as human activity. In particular, the Homestead Act of 1862 and the Enlarged Homestead Act of 1909 brought many families into the Great Plains believing that agriculture would allow them to make a life for themselves. Many of these were inexperienced farmers, so they brought with them poor farming practices. They over-plowed and replaced the deep rooted grasses of the Great Plains with wheat. When those crops began to fail with the onset of drought in 1931, they exposed bare soil, and the Dust Bowl began and lasted until normal rains returned in 1939.[1] To make matters worse, the radiative forcing from dust loading in the atmosphere increased drought intensity and ...