Dust Storm and Hurricane-Force Winds Create Destructive Path Across U.S. Upper Midwest

By Christopher Walljasper and P.J. Huffstutter

CHICAGO – Hurricane-force winds swept through the upper Midwest of the U.S. on Thursday evening, creating dust storms that affected both urban and rural areas, resulting in significant property damage and at least two fatalities.

Straight-line winds reaching speeds of up to 105 miles per hour moved from Kansas to Wisconsin, carrying clouds of topsoil across the countryside and plunging communities into darkness, as reported by meteorologists and soil experts.

The intense dust clouds reminded farmers of the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, with winds causing storage facilities to collapse onto tractors and flipping vehicles on highways.

In Sioux Falls, South Dakota, one individual lost their life due to a fallen tree, while another fatality occurred in Minnesota when a grain bin fell on a car, according to local reports.

"The damage is extensive, but it could have been a lot worse," remarked Todd Heitkamp, the meteorologist-in-charge at the National Weather Service in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. He shared that the most severe impacts were felt in Nebraska, South Dakota, Iowa, and Minnesota.

With the winds dying down, a thin layer of black dirt settled on wind turbine blades and filled drainage ditches, causing farmers concern as valuable topsoil crucial for crops was swept away from fields.

Dry conditions in the Great Plains and Midwest, paired with traditional farming practices like tillage, primed the region for such a massive dust storm, explained Joanna Pope, a public affairs officer with the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service in Nebraska.

"The best defense against these situations is implementing cover crops and adopting soil-conserving methods like no-till farming," she stated. "When soil is exposed, it dries quickly, and strong winds can easily carry it away. This is vital to people’s livelihoods—it’s devastating."

The storm complicates existing challenges for farmers, who are already dealing with delayed planting, skyrocketing input costs, and pressure to ramp up production amidst soaring food prices and potential shortages.

In central Nebraska, high winds damaged irrigation systems established to combat dry conditions for recently sown crops. Farmer Kevin Fulton reported that it could take weeks to repair the expensive equipment.

Meanwhile, farmer Randy Loomis was planting corn near Ayrshire, Iowa, when the storm hit, sending a neighbor’s grain bin tumbling into his yard. After dropping off dinner, his wife and daughter had to abandon their car and take shelter in a nearby ditch from the fierce wind.

"That enormous dust cloud was three football fields wide," Loomis, 62, recalled. "It was just black… it had lifted all that black dirt away."