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The desert climate or arid climate (in the Köppen climate classification BWh and BWk) is a dry climate sub-type in which there is a severe excess of evaporation over precipitation. The typically bald, rocky, or sandy surfaces in desert climates are dry and hold little moisture, quickly evaporating the already little rainfall they receive.
If the annual precipitation is less than 50% of this threshold, the classification is BW (arid: desert climate); if it is in the range of 50%–100% of the threshold, the classification is BS (semi-arid: steppe climate). [9] [11] A third letter can be included to indicate temperature.
Polar deserts are a particular class of cold desert. The air is very cold and carries little moisture so little precipitation occurs and what does fall, usually snow, is carried along in the often strong wind and may form blizzards, drifts and dunes similar to those caused by dust and sand in other desert regions. In Antarctica, for example ...
A hot desert climate tends to have two seasons: a long, hot summer and a shorter, mild winter. Phoenix has four months (June-September) when the historical average high temperature is 100 degrees ...
West of 100°W, much of the U.S. has a cold semi-arid climate in the interior upper western states (Idaho to the Dakotas), to warm to hot desert and semi-arid climates in the southwestern U.S. East of 100°W, the climate is humid continental in northern areas (locations roughly above 40°N, Northern Plains, Midwest, Great Lakes, New England ...
The Great Salt Lake Desert, located near the northeast corner of the Great Basin desert, is an excellent example of a cold desert climate. Although still arid, it is worthy to note that this portion of the desert receives more precipitation than the similar playas and salt pans on the western edge of the Great Basin desert.
A desert is a landscape form or region that receives very little precipitation. Deserts usually have a large diurnal and seasonal temperature range, with high or low, depending on location daytime temperatures (in summer up to 45 °C or 113 °F), and low nighttime temperatures (in winter down to 0 °C or 32 °F) due to extremely low humidity.
Golden Gate Bridge in fog Snow in the mountains of Southern California Summer in the Sierra Nevada at Lake Tahoe High precipitation in 2005 caused an ephemeral lake in the Badwater Basin of Death Valley. The climate of California varies widely from hot desert to alpine tundra, depending on latitude, elevation, and proximity to the Pacific Coast.