Don’t let the rain that fell Tuesday fool you. A superdrought of Dust Bowl proportions could be on the way.

“If I were a betting man, I’d be on the pessimistic side,” said Julio Betancourt, a research scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey office in Tucson, Ariz. “We could be looking at a repeat of the drought conditions of the 1950s, which were second only to those of the 1930s.”

Betancourt, who studies droughts, said much of the West and Midwest appeared to be in the throes of a “megadrought” that was likely to last 10 years or more.

Addressing a Tuesday forum at the U.S. Geological Survey office in Lawrence, Betancourt said recent studies had shown that drought conditions coincided with warm temperatures over the northern Atlantic and cooler temperatures in the southern Pacific.

These temperatures, Betancourt said, don’t change overnight.

“They change over decades,” he said, noting that 2002 was an exceptionally dry year and may have marked the start of a megadrought.

“People tend to forget that the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s were fairly normal, so in some ways we’re long overdue for a prolonged drought,” Betancourt said.

Last year, 92 counties in Kansas — including Douglas, Franklin, Jefferson and Leavenworth — were declared drought disaster areas.

“Right now, just over half the state is ranked either ‘abnormally dry’ to ‘extreme drought,'” said Lisa Taylor, spokeswoman for the Kansas Department of Agriculture. “It’s bad.”

While recent rains are appreciated by Kansas farmers and growers, such as Kevin Irick, above, an expert visiting Kansas University says the long-term outlook for the Midwest is for a megadrought that will rival the Dust Bowl era. Irick was out in between rains Tuesday to pick asparagus at his rural Linwood home.

Western states, too, are suffering, Betancourt said.

“Where I live, you can drive through the woodlands and the desert and see dead trees like you wouldn’t believe,” he said. “There’s been considerable die-off. This is going to be a really bad year for fighting (forest) fires.”

Betancourt said the West’s reservoirs also were running low.

Eastern Kansas emerges from drought (3-29-04) Kansas wildlife show effects of prolonged drought (7-23-03)

“It’s always prudent to conserve our water resources,” he said. “But it’s especially prudent now.”