Eight Years of Drought Leaves Oklahoma Panhandle Dry BOISE CITY, OK (kccu-fm) - The western Panhandle is normally an arid region. But precipitation totals have been below normal since 2000, causing those in the Panhandle to make comparisons to the Dust Bowl, the famous drought years of the 1930s.

Boise City, the Cimarron County seat, has an average rainfall of about 17 inches, which area farmers will tell you is barely enough to grow a decent crop of corn.

But precipitation totals have been below normal since 2000, causing those in the Panhandle to make comparisons to the Dust Bowl, the famous drought years of the 1930s.

Through Wednesday, only 9.49 inches of precipitation have fallen this year in Boise City, according to the Oklahoma Mesonet, and that total includes an unusually high 4.71 inches in August.

Except for modern farming practices, locals say the Panhandle in 2008 would look much like the blowing-dirt photos from seven decades earlier. The soil is so dry that walking through some fields in the county is like walking on a sandy beach

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