Bryan Horwath / The Dickinson Press via AP

A firefighter examines the flames as a fire sweeps through Bucyrus, N.D., on Wednesday night.

When a grassfire destroyed most of tiny Bucyrus, N.D., this week, the "perfect firestorm" of conditions served as a reminder that the long-term drought, combined with unpredictable winds, makes for severe fire danger across the central U.S., even in the middle of autumn.

Four homes and 20 other structures were lost after the fire broke out Wednesday afternoon. Fanned by winds up to 70 mph, it consumed at least 6,000 acres and traveled 10 miles by Thursday morning, The Dickinson Press reported.

"This is like a nightmare," Linda Wiskus told The Dickinson Press. "I wouldn’t wish this on anyone. ... We had about 15 minutes to get what we could. I grabbed a safe, a pair of jeans and some socks — I didn’t have time to get anything else."

The cause of the fire has yet to be determined, but Bucyrus is in a county that's been in continued drought since October 2011, Adnan Akyuz, North Dakota's state climatologist, told NBC News. Conditions got even worse starting Oct. 2.

"When you combine warm, dry and windy conditions, it creates a perfect setting for elevated fire danger," Akyuz noted. Adding drought to that mix, he said, "makes it more dangerous conditions for fire."

"Red flag" fire warnings have been issued "frequently this summer and fall in the area," he added.

Located in southwest North Dakota, the county has also had the lowest amount of precipitation in the state over the last two months.

While about average for the last decade, the number of wildfires across the state this year is higher than the three previous years, which saw lots of rain and flooding, said Cecily Fong, a spokeswoman for the state's Department of Emergency Services.

"Typically, the southwest corner and western part of our state are more prone to wildfires, but they can really occur anywhere if we go into severe drought, which we think we may be doing now," she told NBC News.

A top meteorologist at the federal command post for fighting wildfires said the time of year, combined with the dry grass, wind and drought made for prime fire conditions in North Dakota.

PhotoBlog: Resident returns to destroyed home

"People burning leaves" this time of year is another worry, Ed Delgado, of the National Interagency Fire Center, told NBC News. But he was also hopeful the fire season would see a "very quick decline" as it gets colder and wetter.

Akyuz said putting out North Dakota's 2012 fire season "all depends on the snow cover."

"Our winter snow cover lasts from November through March," he added. "Even though it may be a dry winter, it is unlikely that the entire winter will be snow free."

For some of the 27 residents of Bucyrus, that's little comfort.

Evelyn and Mike Krug were among those who lost their home, The Dickinson Press reported. Asked what she and neighbors might do next, Evelyn shook her head and said only, "I don't know."

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A dust storm swirling reddish-brown clouds over northern Oklahoma triggered multiple crashes involving about three dozen vehicles on Thursday, forcing police to shut down part of the heavily traveled Interstate 35 for several hours amid near blackout conditions.

More than a dozen people were injured as winds up to 55 mph whipped up the soil off farmlands near Blackwell, NBC station KFOR-TV reported. 

In a scene reminiscent of the Dust Bowl days, choking dust shrouded Interstate 35, which links Dallas and Oklahoma City to Kansas City, Mo.

Dozens of vehicles were stopped dead in their tracks in the median and on the shoulders. 

"I've never seen anything like this," said Jodi Palmer, a dispatcher with the Kay County Sheriff's Office. "In this area alone, the dirt is blowing because we've been in a drought. I think from the drought everything's so dry and the wind is high." 

The highway was closed between U.S. 60 and Oklahoma 11, an eight-mile stretch of the cross-country roadway.

"We have very high winds and blowing dust causing a near blackout condition," Capt. James West of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol said Thursday afternoon. He said visibility was less than 10 feet.

The stretch of closed roadway reopened Thursday evening after crews cleaned up debris and waited for winds to die down.

The area has suffered through an extended drought and many farmers had recently loosened the soil while preparing for the winter wheat season.

"You have the perfect combination of extended drought in that area ... and we have the extremely strong winds," said Gary McManus, the Oklahoma associate state climatologist.

Rolf Clements / The Ponca City News via AP

These cars were among the nearly three dozen involved in dust storm crashes Thursday near Blackwell, Okla.

"Also, the timing is bad because a lot of those farm fields are bare. The soil is so dry, it's like powder. Basically what you have is a whole bunch of topsoil waiting for the wind to blow it away. It's no different from the 1930s than it is now."

Steve Austin, a Kay County commissioner, said visibility was terrible even in the nearby town of Ponca City.

"It looked like a huge fog," he said. "We've had dust storms before, but I don't remember anything of this magnitude in years." 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Rolf Clements / The Ponca City News via AP

Rescuers work to remove a woman pinned in a vehicle involved in the Interstate 35 crashes Thursday near Blackwell, Okla.

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From the Dakotas to Oklahoma, city folks are more often seeing, and sometimes smelling, a varmint not much welcome in their parts. Skunks, it turns out, are showing up in more places these days, thanks to the drought covering most of the U.S.

In South Dakota, the city of Aberdeen has set all its skunk traps and could use more -- if it had them.

"It's been my life here for the last month or so," animal control officer John Weaver told AberdeenNews.com. Weaver normally catches two skunks a month, but over the last three weeks, he has already netted 13.

"From everything people are telling me, and what I've discussed with other folks who are in the animal control business, it has to do with the drought," Weaver added. "Farmers are cutting things down, so the skunks are looking for food and water and are coming to town for that."

A veterinarian urged residents to make sure pets are vaccinated, because skunks can carry rabies.

"There isn't a monster invasion of rabid skunks or anything like that," said Tim Sahli. "It's just a concern, and if we stay on top of it, it won't be a problem."

In North Dakota, a golf course that has seen greens damaged by skunks trapped 13 skunks in just one month -- using marshmallows as bait.

"We thought we'd catch one or two and that would be about it," Hillcrest Municipal Golf Course Superintendent Marlyn Bertsch told ValleyNewsLive.com.

"In the past we never really noticed any out here," he said of the course in Jamestown. "You could smell 'em every once in a while, but never had any damage."

In Oklahoma, a self-styled "Skunk Whisperer" has been busy trying to rid backyards of skunks.

Jeff J Mitchell / Getty Images

Striped skunks like this one are native to much of the Midwest, where drought has made them much more visible.

"They have three things that they want: food, water, shelter," Ned Breuha told NewsOn6.com. "And when they can't get one of those things, they go to greener pastures," like the backyards.

"This is a green, green pasture," he said of the yard he was working in when interviewed.

Breuha said some property owners try to trap the skunks themselves, then release them in other areas. One of those has been at Oklahoma City's Lake Hefner, where residents are complaining of a skunk spike.

"I saw a skunk twice, two days apart ... leaving from my rose garden," said Arthur Bay, who has lived at the lake for 43 years and never before seen a skunk. "He's not welcome."

Related: 2012 likely to be warmest year on record in US
Related: Drought worsens in some key farming states

Lake Hefner Golf Club was seeing about a dozen skunks every morning until it hired a trapper.

"He trapped 60 skunks" over three weeks, said club employee Daniel Mills, "and we still have skunks."

Anyone coming across an aggressive skunk should shoot it in the body so the head can be tested for rabies, South Dakota's state epidemiologist Lon Kightlinger told SiouxCityJournal.com.

"We don’t want hunters just going out and blasting skunks, and we don’t want road kill," Kightlinger said.

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You'd think the end of summer would mean the end — or at least beginning of the end — of this year's drought, but the nation's official stat keepers on Thursday revealed otherwise.

With the Midwest corn harvest in full swing, the worst U.S. drought in decades actually worsened: 65.45 percent of the lower 48 states was in some form of drought on Tuesday, up from 64.82 percent a week earlier, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. 

The 65.45 percent is a new record in the 12-year index tracked by the monitor, and it could get worse before getting better.

"I would not be too surprised to see conditions continue to worsen if we do not see widespread rain/snow events" soon, Brian Fuchs, a climatologist who compiles the stats for the Drought Monitor, told NBC News. "The forecast does not bode well for any type of widespread improvements any time soon outside of the central and eastern Corn Belt and maybe into portions of Arkansas and Texas."

"The western and northern Great Plains have indeed continued to worsen and this has spread into the central and northern Rocky Mountains as well," he added.

Brad Rippey, a meteorologist for the Department of Agriculture, noted that the Seasonal Drought Outlook indicates any improvements are likely to "be at least partially offset by worsening conditions from the Pacific Northwest to the upper Midwest." 

Other stats from the latest Drought Monitor were not encouraging:

• Areas in extreme or exceptional drought, the two worst categories, were at 21.5 percent, up from 20.7 percent a week earlier.
• The worst drought conditions remain in the heart of the U.S. breadbasket, weather.com reported: Nebraska at 73 percent, Kansas at 51 percent and Oklahoma at 42 percent.
• Iowa: 100 percent of the nation's biggest corn producer is in some form of drought. That's the same as the previous week.
• Minnesota: 77 percent is now in drought, up from 64 percent, with extreme conditions in the northwest and spreading into southern areas, weather.com noted.
• North Dakota: 95 percent is in drought, up from 88 percent the week before.
• South Dakota: The entire state is in some form of drought, up from 96 percent.

As bad as it's been, some farmers are feeling lucky they got as much out of their harvests as they have.

"Technology and farm practices have helped compared to the last significant drought in the Corn Belt back in 1988," said Fuchs.

That technology includes seed hybrids engineered to be drought tolerant. While environmentalists are concerned genetically engineered plants will alter ecosystems, farmers are quick adopters.

Related: Drought-resistant corn seen as minimizing crop loss this year
Related: Drought-induced 'bacon shortage' not quite what it seems
Related: Time-lapse photos show drought's impact on corn field

Another factor has been Mother Nature.

"Some soybeans in the mid-South and lower Midwest were helped by late-summer rainfall, which included the remnants of Hurricane Isaac," said Rippey.

In the case of corn, "perhaps one of the biggest wild cards ... was the timing of reproduction," he added. A June/July heat wave "hammered corn in the lower Midwest," he said, while the western Corn Belt was hit by a separate heat wave in July. 

"Fields that managed to pollinate either before or after these two heat waves fared better," he said.

"Still, we lost more than one-quarter (28 percent) of the U.S. corn production from pre-drought estimates — a total of nearly 4.1 billion bushels," he said. "Nearly one-fifth (18 percent) of the U.S. soybean production, or 575 million bushels, was lost."

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Danny Johnston / AP

Farmers in Isaac's path, for better or for worse, include Randy Pettingill, seen here checking an ear of undersized corn near Plumerville, Ark., earlier this month.

Thousands of farmers in drought-hit states will be seeing rain from Isaac, but the question many are wondering is whether it will be a blessing, curse or both.

After deluging Louisiana and Mississippi, Isaac on Thursday reached into Arkansas, one of the driest farm states where too much rain could ruin some crops now being harvested.

Farmers ran combines overnight Wednesday, the farm extension service at the University of Arkansas reported — after earlier tweeting this advice: "Harvest in a hurry". 

"If the corn blows over, it is next to impossible to get all of the corn into the combine," university agronomist Jason Kelley reported.

Nearly a quarter of the state's corn crop has yet to be harvested. 

Across the parched central U.S., "pasture, grazing lands and winter wheat" will benefit from the rains over the next few days, Brian Fuchs, a climatologist with the National Drought Mitigation Center, told NBC News.

The rains might also help some soybean crops, added David Miskus, a meteorologist specializing in farm weather at the U.S. Climate Prediction Center. But too much rain could be bad news for corn and cotton.

The big benefit from the rains, Fuchs said, will be "helping to recharge soils going into next year."

National Weather Service

The forecast calls for several inches of rain across the central U.S. over the next few days due to Isaac.

In Indiana, Morgan County grain farmer Jeff Thomas told the Associated Press that farmers there are worried about too much rain too late in the growing season.

"If we get all this water they're talking about, we'll have to deal with flooding, especially in fields along rivers. The rivers just can't hold all of that water," he said.

But others have said even a flood would be more welcome than drought.

In Morrilton, Ark., farmer Randy Pettingill was among those desperate after running out of water for his fields.

"It's been a long summer," he recently told the extension service. "I'll take anything. I don't care if it comes a flood." 

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Courtesy Indiana State Police

A police photo of marijuana planted in between corn in Harrison County, Ind. The drought across the Midwest is allowing police to easier sight green marijuana crop from the air, next to browning, dry corn.

Police in Indiana say they're finding an unexpected benefit to the drought baking the American Midwest: Marijuana crops are easier to find.

Many of the cornfields across the state's parched lands are dry and brown, making the distinctive green marijuana crops stand out "like a sore thumb," according to State Police Sgt. Jerry Goodin.

The State Police on Tuesday cut down 30 newly flowering marijuana plants, The Courier-Journal in Kentucky reported. If allowed to fully mature, these plants would be worth over $30,000, according to The Courier-Journal. Possessing or growing marijuana in Indiana is illegal, Goodin said, and so far in 2012, nearly 30,000 plants have been cut across the state.

Trained troopers fly over the land in airplanes and helicopters to look for the green crop.

"It’s called 'spotting,'" said Goodin. "This year, their jobs are much easier, because much of the foliage (around the marijuana crop) has browned and died."

"A lot of people think we use infrared scopes, but we don’t," Indiana Trooper Mike Bennett, coordinator of the state police Marijuana Eradication Team, told The Courier-Journal. "Marijuana has a distinct green color.”

In most of these cases, Goodin said, farmers had no idea that the pot was on their land: "It’s people who come in and sneak in and plant it."

Courtesy Indiana State Police

Marijuana captured by police in Scott County, Ind.

Despite drought conditions, these marijuana squatters still spend time tending their plants because of the money they can reap, according to Goodin.

Related: The economics of pot legalization

Police say that although arrests are the goal when they find these crops, the planters' identities might never be known.

"By eradicating it, hopefully it will discourage that person who’s doing it," Goodin said.

On Tuesday, Indiana State Police also got rid of about 100 other marijuana plants in rural areas of the state's Harrison and Clark Counties, The Courier-Journal reported.

But humans aren't always the culprit. Goodin said wild marijuana continues to grow across Indiana, after farmers during World War II grew hemp to produce rope.

Over in Kentucky, state police Sgt. Richard Saint-Blancard said the drought "really does not make that much of a difference" in marijuana eradication efforts.

Related: The politics of pot

Private farms are not the only lands prone to covert marijuana operations.

Through the end of August, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration is leading "Operation Mountain Sweep," an effort to target large-scale marijuana growing operations on public lands in Arizona, California, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Washington. The operation began July 1 and so far more than 578,000 plants, estimated by the DEA to be worth more than $1 billion, have been found.

Federal data indicates the number of live marijuana plants eradicated in outdoor and indoor grow operations has dropped in most states in the past three years, The Associated Press reported in early August. While authorities can't point to an exact reason, the AP reported that during those same three years, the amount of bulk processed marijuana seized doubled.

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Parts of northeast Texas were sprayed with insecticide early Friday in an aerial assault on mosquitoes as more cases of West Nile Virus were reported as far north as Illinois.

Planes began spraying an area of Dallas north of Interstate 30 and east of the Dallas North Tollway from 10pm local time (11 p.m. ET) Thursday night until the early hours of Friday, NBCDFW.com reported. More areas were expected to be sprayed later Friday.

Ten people in Dallas County have died after contracting the virus, and hundreds more have been infected.

Health officials confirmed a second case the mosquito-borne virus in DuPage County, Ill., according to a report in the Chicago Tribune on Friday.

According to the Center for Disease Control, there have been 693 confirmed cases across the United States, and 26 deaths.

It is the country's worst outbreak of the disease since it was first recorded in 1999, The New York Times reported.

The hot, dry weather across the country's midsection has created ideal conditions for some species of mosquito. The heat speeds up their life cycle, which accelerates the virus replication process. During a drought, standing water can quickly turn stagnant when it is not flushed away by rain or runoff.

More on this story from NBC News' affiliate NBCDFW in Dallas-Fort Worth

"This year is totally different from the experience Texas has had in the past," state Health Commissioner Dr. David Lakey told NBCDFW.com. "If it's nuisance mosquitoes, we ask the city or county to pay part of that. But in the midst of this disease outbreak, it's easier for us to go ahead and do it."

A national spraying company, Clarke Mosquito Control, was set to deploy two to five Beechcraft King Air twin-engine planes late Thursday night for three hours of spraying.

One county-wide application costs about $1 million. A second application is possible if the first attempt does not kill enough mosquitoes.

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By Thanh Truong, NBC News

WARREN COUNTY, Mo. --  There's a desperate search for water under way throughout Missouri where 95 percent of the state is enduring extreme levels of drought.  In the rural area of Truxton, farmer Rusty Lee estimates he'll likely lose 40 percent of his crops.

We walked through his withering fields where rows of yellow squash lay shriveled under the sun.  Lee said he's been trying to explain the severity of the drought to his 6–year-old son William.

"I try not to talk about our losses money-wise, economic-wise, but I want him to understand that this drought … will go down in history and that he probably won't see something like this in his lifetime," Lee said.

He is one of more than 3,700 farmers and ranchers in Missouri who have been approved for emergency well drilling.  Gov. Jay Nixon issued an executive order last month for the state to pay up to 90 percent of the cost to dig new or deeper wells for farmers severely impacted by the drought.  The farmers will pay the remainder of that cost.  So far, the state has set aside more than $18 million to dig these new wells.

"We've been praying for rain, you don't know how much these wells help us," said long-time cattle rancher Michele Christopherson.

Early Thursday morning, her farm was bustling with noise.  A two-person crew, equipped with heavy drilling equipment, started digging the 540 feet necessary to hit fresh water.  Christopherson's current well doesn't have enough capacity to keep her 100 head of cattle hydrated.  She's had several die from the heat and several others have lost their calves.  Between the $10,000 she's already had to pay for hay and the estimated $12,000 she'll have to pay for the new well, Christopherson said this year will be one of losses.

"We're tough, that's how you got be when you're doing this kind of business, but nobody can sit there and say they can handle that kind of hit.  We certainly can't," said Christopherson.

By noon, the crew hit pay dirt.  Water gushed out of the ground.  Christopherson stood near her fence, smiling at the sight.

A few miles down the road, fellow cattle rancher Peggy Ebbesmeyer was eagerly waiting her turn.  The pond that usually serves as the main watering hole for cows is drying up and the little water left in it is warm and green.

"My cows lose five pounds a day by drinking this water.  There's not much I can do without rain," said Ebbesmeyer.

To supplement the rancid water, she's been hauling water from a town 12 miles away to her farm.  That's been a daily trip for two months.  Ebbesemeyer figures she's lost between $40,000-$50,000 after several head of cattle died and others were sold early.  

But for now, she will likely have to wait until the end of August -- along with thousands of other farmers -- for the drills to arrive.  

Have you been affected by the worst drought in more than 50 years? Share your photos with us on Instagram, Tumblr or Twitter with the tag #Drought2012. You can also upload your photos in the box below. 

Updated at 8:34 p.m. ET: Oklahoma firefighters on Monday battled flare-ups and hot spots across the state as medical officials tried to identify a body burned beyond recognition in a rural Norman home.

The Oklahoma medical examiner's office requested dental records to identify the body found Saturday, said spokesperson Amy Elliott.

The area south of Oklahoma City had been evacuated after a wildfire erupted Friday, and some residents weren't allowed to return until Sunday.

About 7,900 acres burned and about 100 structures were lost in the Cleveland County fire including the Noble, Norman and Slaughterville areas, NBC station KFOR of Oklahoma City reported.

One fire chief reported the wildfires were so violent in the area that structures were “pretty much incinerated,” KFOR reported.

Jim Beckel / AP file

Victoria Landavazo holds her 1-year-old child, Axel, after arriving with other members of her family on Saturday to see for the first time what a wildfire had done to their home in Luther, Okla.

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Crews had battled 18 wildfires that hopscotched across Oklahoma since Friday, torching at least 121 structures and charring almost 94,000 acres amid a drought.

Fires left only ashes in some spots, while property just feet away looked remarkably untouched. In some cases, the flames shifted with the wind, while in others, streams or ponds forced a detour.

Keli Cain, a spokeswoman for the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management, said all the fires were either under control or in "mop-up" stages early Monday afternoon. Mop-ups could go on for days, Cain said.

Tom Gilbert / AP file

Smoke covers Highway 48 on Saturday, east of Drumright, Okla.

Twelve fires, including "a couple of new ones," continued, Cain said.

"High heat, low humidity and very strong winds make it difficult for crews and easy for fires to spread," Cain said.

One, which threatened the small town of Luther over the weekend, is being investigated as a possible arson. Witnesses told Oklahoma County sheriff's deputies they saw a man throwing a lighted newspaper from a black Ford pickup, but no arrests have been made.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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• Towns' residents flee Oklahoma wildfires
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