black blizzard

[ blak bliz-erd ]

noun

, Meteorology.

1. a dust storm, specially an extremely severe one, as repeatedly experienced in the Dust Bowl during the 1930s:

   That spring, those terrifying black blizzards battered our homes and farms for nearly two weeks.

Word History and Origins

Origin of black blizzard¹

First recorded in 1895–1900

Example Sentences

Nobody knew it yet, but the dust that month, that first “black blizzard,” was merely a harbinger of what would come to be called the Dust Bowl, the second great act in the long tragedy of the 1930s and early 1940s.

From Literature

But it was no black blizzard of '36.

From Time Magazine Archive

Related Words

• sandstorm