Ransom ? Conditions are so dry in western Kansas that massive clouds of blowing dirt are reminding some of the Dust Bowl days of the 1930s.

After five years of drought in southwest Kansas, the driest May on record didn’t bring much solace for dryland farmers who are struggling to get anything to grow. And there are no signs that the long dry spell will be ending anytime soon.

“I wish I had some words of wisdom and positive things to say,” said Larry Ruthi, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Dodge City. “But there is no indication that we are going to break anything — instead, continue with the dry weather.”

Dodge City received only a quarter inch of rain in May, typically one of the wettest months of the year. That broke the previous record low rainfall mark of .40 of an inch set in 1886.

A massive Memorial Day weekend dust storm caught Val Beryle of Ransom by surprise. He said he thought he was watching a storm cloud roll in on May 29 when he realized it was instead a billowing cloud of dirt.

“It’s just so darn dry,” he said. “This is the driest that I can ever remember, and I’ll be 70 in October.”

The dry conditions have taken a heavy toll on this year’s wheat crop. Wally Schweitzer, who has been with Ransom Farmer’s Co-op Union for 31 years, doesn’t remember a drier year, either.

He said he expected the elevator to take in only 300,000 bushels of wheat when harvest begins next week, which is only about half of a normal crop. Unless there’s abundant rain in the summer, he doesn’t know if there will even be a harvest in the fall.

“A lot of people are going through the motions,” Schweitzer said of planting crops such as milo. “A lot of people go through it to get insurance, hoping they can’t cut it.”

A dust storm rolls across the plains of northwest Kansas. The May 29 storm produced 70 mph winds.

Kansas State University climatologist Mary Knapp expects above-average temperatures and below-average precipitation during the prime growing season this year.

Already, the National Weather Service said 10 locations in southwest Kansas set record highs on May 6, when temperatures hit 100 degrees in such places as Ness City, Hays and Bison.

The Climate Prediction Center expects the drought in western Kansas to linger at least through August. Experts say random thunderstorms would provide little relief in areas where the ground is parched and subsoil moisture is almost nonexistent.

Those conditions led to the May 29 dust storm that was blamed for the death of state Sen. Stan Clark of Oakley. The Kansas Highway Patrol said 70 mph winds blew so much dirt that motorists couldn’t see well, and Clark’s vehicle was crushed between two tractor-trailer rigs on Interstate 70.

A few days of constant rainfall might help a little, said Jim Shroyer, a Kansas State University extension crop specialist, but conservation is key if farms are to survive.

“If we could just get a couple three days where it would rain two or three inches over several days,” he said. “We just have to get better at utilizing the moisture we have.”

He said weather conditions are cyclical, and noted a period in the 1990s that was unusually wet.

“I think everybody would say it has been five years too long,” Shroyer said of the drought. “I don’t know if it will end for farmers, but the drought may end some farmers.”