GRAND FORKS. N.D. – Strong winds ahead of a severe winter storm picked up countless tons of topsoil and carried them east into Minnesota. It was like a blinding wall of dirt. Red River Valley sugar-beet farmers, used to such periodic wind storms joked grimly among themselves that North Dakota, quite literally, was being blown east to Minnesota.
Red River valley. Meteorologsts use the Sahara term “harmattan” for cold, dry dust storms in seasonably stressful seasons. North Dakota farmers call them Black Devil winds.