For southeast Colorado, a new dust bowl is blowing in

BACA COUNTY Topsoil blew into a dark cloud that swept across the flat landscape of southeast Colorado once again Monday afternoon. Footsteps leave dust in loose pockets and grit in the teeth of those who speak. The land pays a bigger price. After nearly four years of deep drought, wind-churned dust has become a slow-moving natural disaster. Comparisons to the Dust Bowl are no longer hyperbole they're accurate.

"The dust storms we had here a week or so ago are just about as bad as I've ever seen," Joe Rosengrants said. The 79-year-old farmer and rancher is part of a family that has worked the land in Baca County since 1910.

Precipitation and drought conditions in Colorado. Click to enlarge. (The Denver Post)

His son Mike and others in the family here still tend thousands of acres of farm and ranchland and thousands of head of cattle. They also mind the skies for any glint of rain. "We can go a long way on just a little bit of rain down here," Mike Rosengrants, 56, said as he delivered hay to cattle spread across 8 arid miles. "But we haven't even been getting that."

The devastation of this drought comes in three forms: pastures that have dried up or are choked by drifts of sand; tumbleweeds that blow into tall hills against fences, homes and barns; and massive dust storms that steal topsoil and could make it harder to grow grain, wheat and sunflowers for years.

The region hasn't seen normal amounts of rain since the blizzards of 2007. Southeast Colorado averages 12 to 16 inches of rain annually, but many areas have gotten fewer than 8 inches each year since 2010, according to National Weather Service data.

Since the latest drought officially set in late in the summer of 2010, the Arkansas Valley has been drier for a longer sustained period of time than during the Dust Bowl, said Nolan Doesken, the state climatologist at Colorado State University.

A.J. Bolin, working on the sprinkler system at the Eads baseball field, hurries to turn off a water valve on Monday. High winds had blown a torrent of tumbleweeds up against the backstop and fence. (RJ Sangosti, The Denver Post)

"We have not seen consecutive years this dry," he said.

MAP: Precipitation and drought conditions in Colorado.

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For southeast Colorado, a new dust bowl is blowing in