WEATHER: Big Duster

Stagnant air hung heavy and ominous over the parched plains last week. Then a cold front hit and the year's worst duster began to blow. Winds up to 70 m.p.h. whipped across 120,000 square miles of the Southwest dust bowl, and the earth boiled into black clouds 20,000 feet high in the sky. The dust was so thick that dawn came invisibly; when rain began to fall, tiny mud balls pelted the town of Guymon, Okla. Schools closed, stores shut down, and thousands of farm families listened tensely at their radios as their...

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