The plains climate keeps a long ledger of wet years and dry, and drought is not an aberration but a recurring feature, woven into the very rhythm of the region. The great droughts of the past — the dust-blown years that emptied farms and scarred a generation — live on in the memory and the caution of the plains, shaping how the country farms, saves and watches the sky.

The Dry Years Always Return

A drought builds slowly and departs slowly, unlike the sudden violence of hail or tornado. A dry autumn, a thin snowpack, a rainless spring, a scorching summer — each compounds the last until the sloughs dry up, the pastures brown, the crops shrivel, and the whole country waits on a rain that will not come. The wise farmer plans for the dry years even in the wet.

From the almanac's reckoning:

• Drought is a recurring feature of the plains climate, not an aberration.
• The great past droughts still shape the region's caution.
• Drought builds and departs slowly, unlike sudden storms.

Better tillage, drought-hardy crops and conserved moisture have blunted drought's worst edge, but they cannot make it rain. The almanac counsels the old prairie prudence — store the fat years against the lean — for on the plains, the dry years always return.