After the tornadoes, a dry storm “Dust Bowl” swept through the central United States

The presence of a depression system, associated with heat record which lasts since the beginning of December over part of the United States, has contributed to the formation of violent thunderstorms, tornadoes, snow showers in the mountains and wind stormy in the space of a single day. This Wednesday, December 15, at least 20 new tornadoes have been reported under thunderstorms of Nebraska and Iowa. But the clouds thunderstorm had consequences other than these swirls : in Colorado, a gigantic downpour of snow ” snow squalls »(On the mountains) and torrential rains (at low altitude) was photographed by the locals and caused many traffic problems.

More impressive, and more catastrophic, the wind associated with the low pressure system generated a phenomenon resemblingapocalypse : a ” Dust Bowl », A dust storm gusting up to 172 km / h in Lamar, Colorado. In addition to causing accidents serial road and city damage, this dust rose to form a cloud spanning tens of thousands of square kilometers between Colorado, Kansas and New Mexico, reducing visibility to zero. This Dust Bowl has been greatly aggravated by the deterioration of the soil in this area: the practice of intensive agriculture, which leaves bare soils at this time of year, for hundreds of kilometers without any tree no vegetation to stop the wind, and dust from erosion.

Due to this powerful wind, the record heat and the drought persistent, the fire risk was described as extreme between North Texas and Kansas, an exceptional fact in the middle of December.

The Dust Bowls : ecological disasters

the bigger Dust Bowl American occurred in the 1930s: After ravaging the natural prairies of Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Texas and wiping out the majority of herbivores (both wild and domestic), farmers of the time were faced with to a series of devastating dust storms. In question, the practice of intensive agriculture characterized by the “over-tillage” of land, causing very significant erosion. The onset of a lasting drought from 1931 to 1937 then did not allow cereal plants to grow, leaving the soil bare, exposed to storms. This is how the disaster of ” Dust Bowl 1930s ”took hold. Several thousand tons of dust were raised on other states, as far as New York and Chicago. The consequences on human activities, agriculture andecology were so important and sustainable that several laws were then passed to re-vegetate degraded areas, with wild plants naturally occurring in the region.

New Dust Bowl of December 15 shows that there is still a long way to go in the management of agricultural and natural lands.