Chicago experiences first dust storm since the Dust Bowl 91 years ago

Chicago experienced its first dust storm since 1934 Friday night, according to the National Weather Service.

Weather officials issued a dust storm warning for the Chicago area, central Illinois and Northwest Indiana that was lifted at 8:30 p.m. Friday. Residents were told to seek shelter and avoid roads as low visibility could create hazardous driving conditions.

It was the first time the city had seen a dust storm since May 10, 1934, which was during the first wave of the Dust Bowl — a series of intense dust storms caused by a combination of drought and poor farming methods in the mid to late 1930s.

The storm was carrying dust picked up from farms in central Illinois, and raced north toward the Chicago area, bringing 60- to 70-mph winds and reducing visibility to less than a quarter of a mile. Strong winds originating out of a cluster of severe thunderstorms moving across central Illinois caused the storm, the weather service said.

Friday’s dust storm warning was just the second ever issued by the Romeoville-based National Weather Service office. The first was on May 7, 2023, and it didn’t include Chicago, but instead was much farther south in Livingston, Ford and Iroquois counties.

“With all these farmers getting prepped to plant in the coming weeks, there’s a lot of loose soil,” Yack said. “It was kind of a unique setup, we were just in the right place at the right time. … I don’t think they’ll become normal.”

Yack said the biggest threat in dust storms is to motorists given the lowered visibility, and common guidance is to pull to the side of the road safely and turn off car lights so other drivers don’t think they’re in a lane or following a moving car.

In March, a Kansas dust storm led to a highway pileup involving dozens of trucks and cars that left eight people dead, and a May 2023 dust storm in Central Illinois caused a 60-car pileup along with numerous other vehicles, killing six people.

Others caught in a dust storm are advised to stay inside and close windows to keep the airborne dust out, according to Yack.

“It can lead to worse air conditions for those who are more sensitive,” Yack said.

The rare storm also posed new obstacles for the local National Weather Service office because it’s not the type of storm it usually deals with. On top of that, expected thunderstorms were meant to crash into the dust storm, making it difficult for the local office to predict how long the advisory needed to last for. It was also a scramble to get the right messaging out to as many people as possible given the rarity of the storms.

“It was unique for us, which made it a unique challenge for us,” Yack said. “We had storms developing to the north, so it was sort of a tricky thing [to map its trajectory]. Are the storms gonna develop and diminish the dust storm? Is the dust storm going to overwork the dust storm? We were waiting to see what would win out.”

Here’s how social media users captured the storm: