1988 North American Drought
Coordinates: 46°N 94°W / 46°N 94°W / 46; -94 The North American Drought of 1988 was one of the worst droughts ever in the United States. It was a multi-year drought which began in 1988 and continued into 1989. The drought caused $60 billion in damage (between $80 billion and $120 billion for 2008 USD). The drought was the occasion of the worst blowing-dust events since 1977 or the 1930s in many locations in the Middle West including a protracted one which closed schools in South Dakota in late February 1988. During the spring records for lowest monthly total and longest interval between measurable precipitation were set, for example, 55 days in a row without rain in Milwaukee, and during the summer two record-setting heat waves developed, exactly as they did in 1934 and 1936. The concurrent heat waves killed 4,800 to 17,000 people in the United States. During the summer of 1988, the drought led to many forest fires in Western North America, including the Yellowstone fire. At its peak, the drought covered 45% of the United States. This seems minor when compared to the Dust Bowl's 70%, but the drought of 1988 is not only the costliest drought in US history, it was the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history, prior to Hurricane Katrina. In Canada, drought-related losses added up to about 1.8 billion dollars.
Famous quotes containing the words north, american and/or drought:
“Ah! on Thanksgiving day, when from East and from West,
From North and from South, come the pilgrim and guest,
When the gray-haired New Englander sees round his board
The old broken links of affection restored,
When the care-wearied man seeks his mother once more,
And the worn matron smiles where the girl smiled before.
What moistens the lip and what brightens the eye?
What calls back the past, like the rich Pumpkin pie?”
—John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892)
“There exists in a great part of the Northern people a gloomy diffidence in the moral character of the government. On the broaching of this question, as general expression of despondency, of disbelief that any good will accrue from a remonstrance on an act of fraud and robbery, appeared in those men to whom we naturally turn for aid and counsel. Will the American government steal? Will it lie? Will it kill?—We ask triumphantly.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“As the fields fear drought in autumn, so people fear poverty in old age.”
—Chinese proverb.