A four-month drought in the Great Plains is wiping out farmers' winter wheat crop. Its severity is drawing parallels to the 1930s Dust Bowl in some of the hardest-hit regions.

"It's definitely the worst in my career," said Jeff Thornton, a Lincoln County, Colo., wheat and cattle farmer who has tended to his land for 20 years. "I'm pretty sure the wheat crop will be 90 percent destroyed."

Thornton's state is one of the less affected ones. According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, Lincoln County, along with most of eastern Colorado, falls under "severe" drought conditions. The most intense classification, "exceptional" drought, is registered in two spots in Texas: in the Rolling Plains area west of Dallas and near the state's Panhandle.

"A lot of wheat acres will be abandoned," said Steelee Fischbacher, spokeswoman for the Texas Wheat Producers Board and Association. "In the Rolling Plains, they will have 1 to 2 bushels per acre." A normal yield is 35 bushels per acre.

About two-thirds of the Texas wheat crop has been rated "poor" to "very poor" by crop insurance adjusters, added Fischbacher.

The timing of the drought is unlucky for hard red winter wheat, the most common variety in the United States, typically used for bread flour. Planted in the late fall and winter, this variety relies on snow cover and adequate precipitation in winter and early spring to survive.

In addition, strong wheat prices have encouraged farmers worldwide to plant more acres of wheat than in past years, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. Now, the extra effort has gone to waste.

"The prices right now are very good," said Fischbacher. "The fact that many producers aren't going to take advantage of them is going to hurt them twice" -- first on the actual losses in crops, and second for the price of a gamble.

Drought linked to colder Pacific

The drought conditions have been linked to a yearlong cooling trend in the waters of the eastern edge of the Pacific Ocean, said Dale Mohler, a senior agricultural meteorologist with AccuWeather.com. Lower temperatures in the Pacific create a meteorological pattern resulting in high pressure -- meaning high temperatures -- over the Great Plains states of the United States.

While the Pacific's cooling has only been documented for a short time, Mohler believes it signals the beginning of a longer trend, translating into hotter temperatures in the drought-stricken region, year after year.

"A higher percentage of the next 10 to 15 years could [have] higher than normal temperatures over the Plains," said Mohler. "But we're not predicting a Dust Bowl every year."

Indeed, farmers are reluctant to attribute the event to the grander, long-term evolution of climate. Agriculturalists have always braced themselves for climate variability, and many still see this as a particularly rough bump in their career.

"I think it's part of the fluctuations," said Thornton. "By May, we'll have some rain to make up for it," even if it's too late to save wheat.

Modern-day Dust Bowl? Not yet

Despite comparisons to the devastating Dust Bowl that displaced hundreds of thousands of farming families, Mohler says the situation now is much less dire. The extent of the affected area is not as large as during the Great Depression-era drought, although the southwest corner of the Great Plains is "every bit as dry as the Dust Bowl."

But, while this drought has only lasted about four months, the Dust Bowl endured for six to 10 years, depending on the area.

In addition, modern farming practices and better tilling techniques keep more moisture in the soil. As bad as this drought has been, the less sustainable practices of the 1930s would have caused even greater havoc on crops.

But, said Mohler, "if the drought were to spread, then we'd have real problems."

If it persists, the next crop to be hit will be cotton, said Mohler, most commonly grown in West Texas.