What natural disaster struck the American Midwest in 1930?

The Dust Bowl struck the American Midwest and Great Plains beginning in 1930.

It was a prolonged environmental and agricultural disaster marked by severe drought, crop failures, soil erosion, and enormous dust storms. Much of the worst damage occurred across the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles, Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, and neighboring parts of the Plains, although dust clouds traveled far beyond the region.

The crisis had both natural and human causes. Dry conditions weakened the soil, while extensive plowing had removed native prairie grasses that normally held the topsoil in place. High winds then lifted the exposed soil into “black blizzards,” sometimes reducing visibility to only a few feet.

The Dust Bowl intensified the hardship of the Great Depression. Hundreds of thousands of people left their farms, and roughly 3.5 million people moved out of the Plains states during the 1930s. The government later promoted crop rotation, contour plowing, shelterbelts, and other soil-conservation practices. The term also refers to the wider period, generally dated from 1930 into the late 1930s, rather than to one single storm.