Return of the Dust Bowl

The worst drought since the 1930s affected more than half the U.S. for most of 2012, particularly Great Plains states that are central to the nation's agriculture. About 60 percent of the country remained in moderate-to-extreme drought conditions at the end of November, according to NOAA. "Crop insurance was a savior this year," Kyle Wendland, a farmer near Fredericksburg, Iowa, told Bloomberg News. "It was the difference between making a profit or sustaining a loss."

A canoe sits in July on a dock in a dry section of the Morse Reservoir in Cicero, Indiana, one of three reservoirs that supply water to nearby Indianapolis.

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