What are the Great Plains?
Some early
EuroAmerican explorers such as Lt. Zebulon Pike
proclaimed the Great Plains to be the "Great American Desert." He saw
what seemed to be limitless horizons of nothing but grass. Pike could see
little potential for human habitation. Even into the 1920s,
anthropologists such as Clark Wissler thought that the Plains were largely
unoccupied until the white man brought the horse and the gun. Only then
could the Native inhabitants venture very far onto the Plains. As it
turned out, both men were very wrong. The Great Plains had been
occupied for thousands of years by both hunters and farmers, a home to
many American Indian nations. As EuroAmerican settlement began, the
potential of the Plains for EuroAmerican-style agriculture, ranching and
economic developm ent became obvious. The conflict between the two ways of
life and over control of the land would become the stuff of national
myth.
For those who reside on the Great Plains, however, the power of
humans to control the land has never been so great as the power of nature
to shape human destiny. But what are the Plains?
Description
The Great Plains are vast, extending from the northern part of Sonora,
Mexico northern into the Prairie Provinces of Canada (the plains are
called Prairie in Canada). East to west, they extend from as far east as
Ohio to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. The eastern part of the area
has tallgrass prairie and extends eastward in a sort of point as part of
an area called the Prairie Penninsula. The mixed grass areas extend from a
line approximately along the eastern borders of the Dakotas, Nebraska and
K ansas heading southward into Texas. The short grass High Plains lay west
from about the 100th Meridian just east of the course of the Missouri
River to the foothills. The Northern Plains usually includes the Prairie
Provinces of Canada (Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and part of western
Ontario
and eastern British Columbia) and North and South Dakota. Some might also
include parts of Wyoming and Montana, Nebraska and Kansas. 
The Great Plains is what geologists
call an "outwash plain" formed by the erosion of the Rocky Mountains.
Within the Plains are a number of unique geological and environmental
zones such as the Sand Hills of Nebraska, the Black Hills of South
Dakota and Wyoming, and the South
Dakota Badlands.
Climate
The section below is
taken from Chapter 8:
The Great Plains in GEOGRAPHY USA: A Virtual Textbook by Alan
A. Lew.
The Great Plains has some of the most variable and
extreme climate in North America. Winters are cold, with frequent snowy
blizzards, while summers bring hot, dry winds. As with the Midwest,
temperature extremes increases northward. Texas towns typically experience a
50 degrees F difference between average January and July temperatures. In
northern ND these difference reach 70 degrees F.
Every year hail storms on the Great Plains destroy millions of dollars of
crops. Their occurrence is most frequent in the westernmost portion of the
Great Plains. Blizzards are caused by thrusts of extremely cold polar air
moving across the Great Plains. This air brings high winds, intense cold,
and heavy snows lasting for several days at a time.
The Great Plains also experiences more tornadoes than any other region in
the US. These 200+ mph whirlwinds occur throughout the middle and lower
plains, centered on the state of OK. From the late spring and into summer
the Great Plains also experiences the fastest non-tornado winds in the
US. These warm winds cause high rates of evapotranspiration, limiting the
useability of the region's limited rainfall.
Like the Midwest and South, most of the moisture falling on the Great
Plains comes from the Gulf of Mexico in the summer months. As the winds
rise up the Mississippi River Valley, they curve slightly westward and
then back to the east toward the Midwest. At the same time, Pacific Ocean
winds from the west are sapped of their moisture as they rise over the
Rockies, creating a "rainshadow" over the Great Plains. The result is a
very unpredictable and unreliable annual rain.
When the region was
first being settled by whites in the late 1800s, periods of good rainfall
would attract large numbers of settlers. Then several years of drought
would occur, causing economic recessions and turning fields into dry
wastelands. This happened several times in the 1800s and early 1900s,
with the worst dust bowls occurring in the Depression years of the
1930s.
The average rainfall in the central part of the Great Plains is
20 inches/year. Any one place, however, typically experiences between 80%
(16 inches) to 120% (24 inches) of its average. A lengthy rainfall that is
80% of normal is considered a drought cond ition. Major droughts occur
approximately every 20 years (1890s, 1910s, 1930s, 1950s, and 1970s).
The natural vegetation on Great Plains is grass. A rainfall average of 16
inches/year generally results in drier short grasslands (steppe climate).
A rainfall average of 24 inches/year generally results in taller (one to
three foot) grasses (sometimes kno wn as "prairies"). The line separating
the short and tall grasses is located where an average 20 inches of rain
falls each year. This line is located at 98 degrees west longitude, and
runs through the center of most of the Great Plains states: ND, SD, NE,
KS, OK, and TX. (By comparison, the annual average rainfall for the Gulf
Coast is 50 inches; for the South is 40 inches; and for the Midwest is 30
inches.)
Animals
The grasslands of the Great Plains host a
range of animals. Almost everyone knows about theAmerican bison or buffalo, as it
is commonly called. The bison has almost come to symbolize the Plains.
Many
other animals including deer, antelope, coyotes, rabbits, many species of
fish and a huge range of birds have lived on the Plains. Much of their
distribution depends on the habitats available to them. As with the near
extinction of the buffalo from hunting in the last century, many other
species are also threatened due to hunting, farming, ranching and other
development practices.
States
Find out something about the Plains in each state by
following the links. These are just a sample of what is available. For
even more links, look carefully at the General Sources that follow this
section.
North Dakota
Native
Wildflowers of North Dakota Grasslands
An on-line catalog of
wildflowers that grow in the North Dakota Plains/Prairies.
South
Dakota
Endangered,
Threatened & Rare Animals of South Dakota
Fragile Legacy is
a beautiful on-line pamphlet with photos and distribution maps of
endangered animals in the state.
Nebraska
Nebraska's
Land and Climate
This page give detailed information about the
major regions of Nebraska's grasslands and unique features.
Heritage of the
Nebraska Sand Hills
A beautiful web site with all types of
information about the Sand Hills.
Kansas
The
Konza Prairie
The Konza Prairie Research Natural Area (KPRNA)
encompasses more than 3400 ha of tallgrass prairie in northeastern Kansas.
Montana
Presettlement
Wildlife and Habitat of Montana: An Overview
This interesting
examines journals from the early explorers into Montana and excerpts from
them about wildlife and the size of their habitats. The general
conclusion is that these habitats have been greatly reduced. Many journals
have maps showing the routes taken.
General Plains and Prairie
Sources
Northern Prairie
Science Center
Established by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the
NPSC contains a wealth of information about wetland and prairie ecology.
Especially check out their Biological Resources Section.
Many sources are non-technical and are identified as such. They range from
waterfowl identification guides to a study of coyotes. Northern
Prairie Herbarium
A searchable database of northern Prairie plants
giving a lot of information on over 6,000 specimens.
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Plains Page