CHICAGO, Ill. — The May 16 dust storm that impacted Illinois, Indiana and Michigan was part of a larger storm system that resulted in several deaths and scores of injuries in Missouri. 

A report issued by the National Weather Service (NWS) found that a complex of thunderstorms moved through an environment “favorable for efficient thunderstorm downdraft production,” triggering an outflow of straight-line winds in the upper Midwest. Visibility was significantly reduced across the area from about a half-hour to nearly two hours, resulting in multiple car crashes in central Illinois, according to the report’s author, W. Scott Lincoln, senior service hydrologist for NWS Chicago in Romeoville, Ill. 

“These gusty winds moved across rural, agricultural areas that were recently tilled and planted for the spring, with soil moisture values below average for May. A significant amount of dirt and dust was lofted, leading to a rare dust storm for the area. A multi-county area experienced visibilities less than 1 mile, and the minimum observed visibility was 0.25 miles and near 0 miles at official weather stations and from unofficial reports, respectively,” said Lincoln. 

Dust and dirt events with minimum visibilities of 0.63 miles or less are indicated as a “dust storm,” with minimum visibilities below 0.31 miles indicated as “severe dust storm,” as defined by the American Meteorological Society’s Glossary of Meteorology. Severe dust storms associated with a wall of dust, along with a rapid onset of reduced visibilities and gusty winds, such as what NWS observed on May 16, are referred to as haboobs, based upon the Arabic word for ‘to blow.’ 

“Severe dust storms or haboobs are uncommon in the Midwest, and much more frequently observed in the Desert Southwest and Great Plains of the United States or in arid regions of the Middle East, Sahara Desert, or Central Australia,” Lincoln noted.

The storms were part of a larger system that caused deaths, dozens of injuries and property damage in St. Louis and other areas of Missouri, spawned tornadoes in Wisconsin, left hundreds of thousands without power in the Great Lakes region and brought a punishing heat wave to Texas, National Public Radio (NPR) reported.  

The number of dust storms recorded annually across the U.S. doubled in just over a decade. Between 1996 and 2010, 512 dust storms were recorded across the U.S., averaging 34 per year. From 2011 to 2024, the total number of dust storms reached 1,223, for an annual average of 87. This is according to the National Centers for Environmental Information, a federal agency, which has stated that climate change has contributed to an increase in the frequency and intensity of dust storms, derechos and haboobs. 

Kevin Brooks, commercial agriculture educator for the University of Illinois Extension, said some are citing the removal of hedge rows from farm field borders as a contributor to pop-up dust storms, such as the one that caused a 72-vehicle pileup and took the lives of seven motorists on Interstate 55 in central Illinois on May 10, 2023. Rather than requiring farmers to plant hedgerows — whose roots can choke nearby commercial crops and shade can hamper crop development — Brooks recommends stronger conservation programs that encourage more farmers to embrace conservation practices as a way to cut down on field dust. 

“No-till and strip-till greatly reduce the likelihood of blowing soils. The newer and popular tillage equipment slices and dices the top several inches of soil into a powder, and at the same time, has sped up the speed of farming. That is what is causing the current dust storms when conditions are warm, dry, and the soils are bare or nearly so,” Brooks stated, in a recent article published by Extension and College of ACES. “Cover crops are very effective in preventing wind erosion, but they are not widely used. Cover crops add expenses and lost time, but in the long run, they can improve profitability, but that takes time, which is costly in the short run.”

Brooks is calling for a combination of changes in USDA conservation programs for farmers and lease requirements for farmland. “Currently, the United States Department of Agriculture’s farmer subsidies could be better clarified. The programs encourage increasing yields while not adequately solving environmental issues,” he said. “Furthermore, most farmland in Illinois is not owned by farmers but is owned by families that left farming years ago. Landowners need to provide incentives in lease structures to incentivize farmers to protect the land.”