Sources:

(1) - Severe and Hazardous Weather: An Introduction to High Impact Meteorology (Bob Rauber, John Walsh, Donna Charlevoix)

(2) - http://www.drought.noaa.gov/palmer.html

            Deaths associated with drought are often attributed to food and water shortages rather than from people being directly exposed to the elements and losing their lives.  Droughts do have very high monetary cost though, and according to the chart on the right, from the National Drought Mitigation Center droughts on average cost more than floods and hurricanes in the United States each year (http://drought.unl.edu/risk /us/compare.htm) . In other countries though droughts cause can cause hundreds and thousands of deaths. In poor countries that rely on local agriculture as their main food source a drought can leave the country without food, which leads to starvation and death. Fortunately the United States is a large country and our agriculture industry is expansive and advanced, so unless a drought hits the entire country, which is not common, our food supply will be marginally impacted. Smaller countries are not as fortunate and drought can shut down all agriculture leaving the country vulnerable. Poorer countries often rely on help from other countries, the United Nations, and other international originations to step in and help.

            The worse drought in United States history was from 1930 until 1936, which hit the Great Plains. Combined with the Stock Market crash of 1929 and horrible economic conditions the drought was the worst weather disaster in United States history. Part of the reason the drought was so awful was because of bad farming techniques used leading up to the drought. If better techniques were used it would not have stopped the drought but defiantly could have reduced the damage. The drought became known as the “dust bowl” because it left much of the land covered in dust and not usable for farming. The picture to the right shows what was once a farm in South Dakota that was turned into a dust pile. Over half a million Americans were left homeless because of the drought, while over 2.5 million people fled the Great Plains (http://www.usd.edu/anth/epa/dust.html). This resulted in a huge migration of Americans out of the central plains and into northern cities and California. Many record high temperatures were set during the 1930s drought still remain as record highs today.

            In a normal year about 237 people die directly from heat waves in American alone! Some of the more recent deadly heat waves in United States history were in 1980 and 1995 where about 1,250 and 1,000 people died respectively (http://www.co.pasqu otank.nc.us/departments/911/webpage/heatwaves.htm). Hundreds more people are believed to die ever year from heat related issues such as diseases that were caused by the heat. Some of these heat related diseases are sunburn, heat cramps, heat exhaustion, and heat strokes. Sunburn is a redness that develops on ones skin from lots of exposure to the sun. Heat cramps are painful spasms in the muscles. Heat exhaustion often results in cold skin, sweating, possible vomiting and fainting. Heat strokes result in extremely high body temperature, above 106 ° F, this is the most deadly result of heat. 

            As an example of a recent deadly heat wave, in 1995 the United States Midwest suffered one of its worse heat waves ever on July 12-15. The death toll estimates range from 500 to 1,000 depending what is considered a heat related death! Chicago was located in the core of the heat wave and therefore suffered the worse temperatures and most deaths. (Chicago is also located along Lake Michigan so it has the nighttime urban heat island effect.)  This helped keep the temperatures in the city high even at night. During the heat wave some cities recorded 80° F dewpoint temperature. This produced heat indices that climbed to 120° F (Charlevoix). These conditions combined led to one of the worse heat waves in United States history.

Costs and Losses in the United States

http://drought.unl.edu/risk/us/compare.htm

   While droughts are by no means the most glorified weather phenomenon, they are by far the most costly and even the most deadly. Droughts are the number one weather related cause of death in the world even though they are rarely publicized as much as other weather phenomena. One such occasion where a drought has left its mark on society was the Dust Bowl of the 1930’s. During this time a drought covered nearly the entire Great Plains for nearly an entire decade. More interesting than the weather behind the drought was the societal impact of it. As it is well understood, the 1930’s were already a period of economic volatility following Black Tuesday October 29, 1929 and the crash of the stock market. Having the destructive forces of drought wreck havoc across the Great Plains only worsened the situation and lead a massive decline in the U.S. economy.

            The Great Plains was primed and vulnerable for a drought because of the poor land management tactics of the 1920’s and before. In fact, the land settlement techniques of even 100 years earlier were partly to blame for the vulnerability of the region. This is because huge areas of land were given away to farmers who knew very little about the climate and fertility of the soil. Also, the first flock of settlers came during a wet cycle and they thought that was the normal climate for the region (1).  As a result, they just tried to grow more and more sucking the vital nutrients out the soil; this lead to soil erosion and massive dust storms capable of traveling across the entire country. As crop prices fell, farmers were forced to grow more and more crops to make enough money. Farming submarginal lands often had negative results, such as soil erosion and nutrient leaching. By using these areas, farmers were increasing the likelihood of crop failures, which increased their vulnerability to drought. Overall, reductions in soil conservation measures and the use of poorer lands made the Great Plains more vulnerable to wind erosion, soil moisture depletion, depleted soil nutrients, and drought. (1)

As a result of this vulnerability, the Great Plains was struck with the most severe drought in recorded history. While the Dust Bowl is referred to as one long drought, it is actually 4 distinct drought events: 1930–31, 1934, 1936, and 1939–40 that ran together in close succession (2). As seen in the figure, almost all of the Great Plains was ravaged during this time period.  In terms of cost, the Dust Bowl was the second most costly drought in history behind the drought of 1988-89. However, it is difficult to calculate the exact costs because of the other events occurring simultaneously such as the Great Depression. It is estimated that over 2.5 million people migrated from the Great Plains to other areas of the country to escape the wrath of the drought. This led to extensive settlement of the west coast that we see today. Altogether, the most important effect of the Dust Bowl was the devastation that it caused the U.S. economy. In a period of intense economic turmoil, a very low supply of crops such as wheat only worsened the situation. People could not afford to buy the little food that was available and thousands of farmers went homeless because of their low crop yields.

            Overall, the poor land management and farming techniques of previous decades left the Great Plains vulnerable to one of the worst droughts in U.S. history. With dry soil and heavy soil erosion, the diminished rainfall for several years caused extreme drought that led to dust storms, as seen in the figure, that left the Great Plains unviable for farmers. According to most historians and meteorologists, the drought of the 30’s and the “Dust Bowl” was the worst weather related disaster in U.S. history.

Sources

(1)http://www.drought.unl.edu/whatis/dustbowl.htm

(2)- http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/drought/drght_temporal.html