Parched Midwest, Plains Due for More Hot, Dry Weather

Weather forecasters, predicting more searing hot weather for most of the nation, offered scant hope for crop recovery in many drought-stricken farm fields today as Ohioans prepared an Indian rain dance and 1,000 barges clogged parts of the drying Mississippi River.

The National Weather Service said showers and thunderstorms dampened parts of the parched Midwest and Great Plains, but the raindrops merely teased many farmers in Wisconsin, North Dakota and Mississippi.

Weather service forecaster Harry Gordon said significant relief from the heat wave is not in sight this week because of a mass of hot, dry air inching across the nation.

In Mississippi, where the South Delta has received only 1 inch of rain since mid-April, many farmers are curtailing planting.

“I am 67 years old and I have never seen a drought like we are experiencing,” said C. B. (Buddie)) Newman, former Speaker of the Mississippi House of Representatives and a Valley Park, Miss., farmer.

‘Would Be Foolish’ to Plant

Newman said he had intended to plant 1,300 acres of soybeans, but seeded only 450 acres. “I don’t intend to plant any more,” he said. “It would be foolish.”

Agriculture economists from North Dakota State University said the drought could cause losses of $2.7 billion.

About 55% of North Dakota’s wheat and barley crop and about 65% of the oats crop have been destroyed by the current drought, Arlen Leholm, a state university extension economist, said. Some parts of the state have a 70% or more loss in crops, he said.

In northwest Ohio, a Sandusky florist paid $2,000 to summon Leonard Crow Dog, a Sioux medicine man from the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota, to perform a four-day rain dance ceremony beginning Sunday in nearby Clyde, Ohio.

7-10 Inches of Rain Needed

“I thought if we call back on the native Americans, maybe they knew something we didn’t,” Clifford Doebel said. “He is a very dedicated individual to his religion and quite a powerful leader among his Indian people.”

No more than a few hundredths of an inch of rain fell in the northern part of the state early today. The Ohio Agricultural Statistics Service says 7 to 10 inches of rain is needed to alleviate the drought.

In Wisconsin, agriculture experts said their farmlands will face disaster without significant rainfall in the next two weeks.

The lack of rain has dropped water levels in the Mississippi River to between 2 feet and more than 10 feet below normal by today, forcing closure of much of the waterway until Sunday while dredging takes place.

At least 1,000 barges jammed two sites of the Mississippi River just north of Greenville because of low water.