Amidst one of the most intense droughts to grip the Sooner State since the Dust Bowl came the dust, once again. Several such events whipped across central Oklahoma during the fall and winter of 2005–6, but the most dense and memorable was on New Year’s Day. Millions of tons of reddish soil from west Texas and eastern New Mexico became part of Oklahoma that afternoon in a familiar meteorological position: the dry slot, south of a powerful low pressure area. The dust got dense enough, at times, to reduce visibility to less than a mile and to blur objects as little as a hundred feet away, rendering a spooky Martian sky and grit in every breath.
1 E Arcadia OK (1 Jan 6) Looking SW
35.6671, -97.3127New Year’s Day Dust Storm
Amidst one of the most intense droughts to grip the Sooner State since the Dust Bowl came the dust, once again. Several such events whipped across central Oklahoma during the fall and winter of 2005–6, but the most dense and memorable was on New Year’s Day. Millions of tons of reddish soil from west Texas and eastern New Mexico became part of Oklahoma that afternoon in a familiar meteorological position: the dry slot, south of a powerful low pressure area. The dust got dense enough, at times, to reduce visibility to less than a mile and to blur objects as little as a hundred feet away, rendering a spooky Martian sky and grit in every breath.
1 E Arcadia OK (1 Jan 6) Looking SW
35.6671, -97.3127