The One Minute Geographer: The Great Plains — The Dust Bowl and the Aquifer

Center-pivot irrigation in Finney County, Kansas. Photo from nasa.gov

More from the One Minute Geographer about the 100-degree meridian and how it relates to the arid-humid climate boundary, the Dust Bowl of the 1930’s, and the Ogallala Aquifer today.

The transition zone between semiarid and subhumid climate on the Great Plains. Map from the National Drought Mitigation Center at drought.unl.edu. 100-degree meridian drawn by the author.

Although it’s not an exact match, we can think of the 100-degree meridian as marking the transition zone between semiarid climate to the west and subhumid climate to the east, as on the map above. One characteristic of the semiarid climate zone is that multiple-year droughts are common.

Severe wind erosion in the Dust Bowl, 1935–1938. Map from Wikipedia.com; 100-degree meridian drawn by the author.

The worst drought of recent times was the Dust Bowl and severe wind erosion of the 1930’s. The area most impacted was centered around where the five states of Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, New Mexico and Colorado meet. The most severe impacts were about 100 miles west of the meridian, shown in blue above.