That was the strangest part ~ there's a high planes quadrant, a SW quadrant, a SE quadrant and an Ohio Valley/St. Lawrence quadrant.
In one cycle the droughts will affect just one quadrant, and in others two, and maybe three, but rarely four.
He speculated the quadrant rules in both America and China were similar but since the droughts run about 21 years apart, he didn't have enough data to prove much.
The map you provided shows less coverage in the US in this drought than in 1934. That's because it affects only 2 quadrants, and not 3 like in 1934.
Think about that one a second ~ if 34 was the maximum we've experienced and that didn't hit all 4, then what is it like when there's a 4 banger?
I think we know ~ there was a great drought in what is now the United States that came to an end about 1611 or so. It'd been raging for 17 years in most of Virginia ~ which is why there are no 425 year old trees around here. Earlier there'd been a 70 year period of diminished rainfall.
If you ever wondered why the Spanish didn't do much with the Eastern Seaboard, there you have it.
That's a 4 banger ~ and everything dries up everywhere. Populations crash. Grasslands open up from the Gulf to the Great Lakes (DeSoto reported grasslands filled the interior ~ from the Gulf to the Great Lakes ~ not many trees ~ you could literally see everywhere for miles and miles. Efforts to settle in Texas in that period were total disasters.
Pearl Buck wrote about a similar phenomenon in China that she'd heard about. The drought was everywhere ~ not just a short term extension of the Gobi, but everything in Northern and Central China dried up.
I think that's 1813 or so ~ they lost hundreds of millions of people ~ all the way West in the far North to the Kola peninsula.
Good news today ~ it's raining in Indiana and Ohio and a Typhoon made it into Central China.
We will live another day.