1936 North American Heat Wave

The 1936 North American heat wave was the most severe heat wave in the modern history of North America. It took place in the middle of the Great Depression and Dust Bowl of the 1930s, and caused catastrophic human suffering and an enormous economic toll. The death toll exceeded 5,000, and huge numbers of crops were destroyed by the heat and lack of moisture. Many state and city record high temperatures set during the 1936 heat wave still stand to this day. The heat wave followed one of the coldest winters on record.

Read more about 1936 North American Heat Wave:  Events, Effect On The Environment

Famous quotes containing the words north, american, heat and/or wave:

    “Biography is a very definite region bounded on the north by history, on the south by fiction, on the east by obituary, and on the west by tedium.”
    —Philip Guedalla (1889–1944)

    “It is not more people that are needed in the world but better people, physically, morally and mentally. This question of raising the quality of our American population must also be taken into account in the question of immigration.”
    —Agnes E. Meyer (1887–1970)

    “The Soul rules over matter. Matter may pass away like a mote in the sunbeam, may be absorbed into the immensity of God, as a mist is absorbed into the heat of the Sun—but the soul is the kingdom of God, the abode of love, of truth, of virtue.”
    —Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    “I hear
    the tide turning. Last
    eager wave over-
    taken and pulled back
    by first wave of the ebb.”
    —Denise Levertov (b. 1923)