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fering the effects of two years of drought, 1977 was a record-shatterer. Snowpack in the Sierra Nevada, which provides mucli of the water for the state’s $9 billion agricultural industry, was only a quarter of Formal. The snow shortage spelled a billion-dollar loss for farmers, set the s*age for a summer of forest fires, and brought water rationing as a way of life.
Soil Tumi To Dust
As a dry spring turned to an abnormally hot and dry summer, much of the nation was drought stricken. By mid-July parts of 35 states had been placed on the federal emergency drought list.
Eastern South Dakota was drier than in the dust bowl days, and howling winds scoured clouds of dust from winter wheat fields in Texas, Oklahoma, and eastern Colorado, killing livestock.
But when it did rain in 1977, it poured. A 24-hour deluge in Kansas City took the lives of 25 persons in a freak occurrence described by the National Weather Service as probable once every 1,000 years. And the third major flood in 100 years in Johnstown, Pa., killed 75.
Only tornadoes and hurricanes, the traditional headline-grabbers, kept a low profile. It was an off year for tornadoes, and there were only five hurricanes, compared with an average of seven. .
81.6%