During the Great Depression of the 1930s, America witnessed horrific weather, particularly drought, but also extremely hot and cold weather and natural disasters such as tornadoes and floods, in a way not witnessed as commonly earlier in time in American history.
And now, while in the midst of the Great Recession and its aftermath, we have witnessed new evidence of drought, records set for hot weather, plus tornadoes, floods, fires, and other natural disasters.
It makes one wonder why the connection between difficult economic times has been magnified by bad weather, but the author has no answer to this, just pointing it out!