THE GREAT PLAINS: Pale Ydlow Ghost

For two days last week a pale yellow cloud rode a 70-mile gale across the southern Great Plains. In western Kansas, high-blowing sands blurred the sun and built ripply dunes along the east-west highways. In parts of Oklahoma the swirling dust cut visibility to half a mile. Winds in northern Texas sawed the sandy earth out from between dead cotton stocks, scooped fine topsoil from dry fields where winter wheat had failed to sprout because of long draught. Even in Dallas, 300 miles away, darkness came an hour early and sand sifted under windows...

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