The dust bowl of the 1930s - Research Paper Example

The Dust Bowl caused losses amounting to millions of dollars in the process drying up the already depressed the economy of the United States in the 1930 through the damages created. The advancement in technology has made NASA believe that Jet Stream could have partly contributed to the drought. The decade of the 1930s was opened with unparalleled growth and prosperity. During the decade, the demand for wheat in the word was high making most farmers purchase tractors, one way plows and combines as a result of making a big chunk of the available land to be under the wheat plantation and with little regard being given to the damage that was being done to the environment (Siegfried, Max, Philip, Randal, and Julio 2004).

The grasslands that should have never been plowed being plowed up, in the process breaking millions of acres of land meant for farming in the Great Plains. The year 1930 despite being dry, most farmers made wheat crop. As a matter of fact, in the year 1931, the wheat crop was mostly considered as a bumper crop largely due to the existence of over twelve million bushels of wheat. Wheat could be found everywhere be it in the elevators, in the roads and even on the ground. This increased supply in wheat resulted into prices of wheat going down hence most farmers incurring massive losses and going broke forcing a big number of the farmers to abandon their fields.

Between the years 1934 to the year 1936, three record drought were experienced with the year 1936 experiencing a more severe storm that was even more severe and spread out of the plains and across all over the nation. These years of drought were accompanied by what we can consider as record breaking heavy rains, tornados, blizzards and flash floods. In the month of September in 1930, a rain of over five inches was experienced within a very short time in the Oklahoma Panhandle (Siegfried, Max, Philip, Randal, and Julio 2004).

This flooding in Cimarron County was further accompanied with a dirt storm which had profound damage on several small buildings and granaries. Additionally, during the same period, the region was whipped again by a strong dirt storm originating from the southwest until when the winds gave way to a blizzard from the north. The drought began after the blizzards in the winter between 1930 and 1931 which was first experienced by the northern plains feeling the dry spell and immediately followed by the southern plains in mid-July (Siegfried, Max, Philip, Randal, and Julio 2004).

The ground as a result dis not have enough water that would necessitate planting until the late September during the same period. As a result of this, there was late planting characterized with early frost and with much of the wheat being small and weak, the wheat was beaten by dirt from the abandoned fields when in 1932 the spring winds began to blow. Various causes can be traced to the Dust Bowl experienced in the US Midwest during the 1930s. Amongst the causes could be the prevailing unstable ocean temperatures in the 1930s.

this can be scientifically be explained by the fact that when the temperatures are cooler than normal in the tropical Pacific Ocean while on the other hand the Atlantic Ocean temperatures are experiencing ideal drought conditions as a result of the unstable sea surface temperatures, dry air coupled with high temperature could