CROP PROSPECTS IN MIDDLEWEST ARE DEBATED
DROUGHT CAUSES APPREHENSION; DUST SHOWERS WIDE AREAS

Chicago (A) – Apprehension over Middle America’s crop prospects grew hourly today.
Parched prairies and plains, long baked by a hot sun and swept by swirling chocking “black blizzards” of dust, swelled the alarm of agrarian and city dweller alike.
The only note of hope was the forecast of local showers tonight in Nebraska and North and South Dakota, and in Iowa tomorrow.
Elsewhere no relief was in sight.
Light showers have fallen in the Chicago area – the first in twenty eight days- and in Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Texas, but they were regarded as of little value. The Chicago Board of Trade took cognizance of the situation and the prices on all future deliveries of wheat skyrocketed five cents yesterday.
Whipped by strong winds, the dust clouds from the vast plains of Western Canada swept across the border with undying intensity yesterday, befogging the entire area from Montana on the West, Texas on the South and the Ohio Valley on the East.
Pilots reported that the dust particles had invaded the upper portions of the air – as high as 10,000 feet and were sweeping eastward at the rate of 60 to 100 mile an hour.
[Daily Messenger, Canandaigua (NY) May 11, 1934 - Submitted by Source #78]

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