‘Mini Dust Bowl’ could be forming in the US, expert warns. Will El Niño make it worse?

(NEXSTAR) – Drought conditions are already bad across the West, even “exceptionally” bad in some spots, and experts fear they’re about to get worse.

Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Nebraska, Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle are seeing large swaths of “extreme” and “exceptional” drought, as of mid-July. For many of those states, the dry season is far from over.

Long-range conditions don’t look much better, AccuWeather forecasters recently warned. Depending on what conditions materialize, a super-strong El Niño, like the one we’re expecting to see this year, could have a ripple effect on the Plains states for years, long-range expert Paul Pastelok said.

“If the long-term drought is as bad as it could be, and you are starting off already with severe drought, this raises the real possibility of a ‘mini Dust Bowl,’ said AccuWeather founder and executive chair Joel Myers.

Drought isn’t just a weather problem, Myers said. It’s also an economic problem. “Soybeans........

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