southwest region climate in summer
Modified fromFigure 11 in Kirby et al. Global temperatures during the Cretaceous were very warm, as much as 10C (18F) above those at present. Photo by Center for Land Use Interpretation(Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 license, image resized). By 2070, one can expect up to 38 more days of freeze-free weather each year. For example, parts of the Colorado Rockies experience cool annual temperatures and over 8 meters (25 feet) of snowfall every year, while the dry deserts in southwestern Arizona receive only about 8 centimeters (3 inches) of precipitation a year and can experience as much as a 15C (60F) degree temperature difference between night and day. Taken on August 15, 2016. Data source: NOAA, 20214Web update: April2021, Key Points | Background | About the Data | Technical Documentation. Lower latitudes receive more heat from the sun over the course of a year; for each degree increase in latitude, there is approximately a 1C (2F) decrease in temperature. The continued growth of Pangaea created an intense monsoonal climate, similar to that of Asia today, that affected large parts of the continent. Other elements involved in the ignition and growth of fires and the risks they pose to people living in the Southwest include (but are not limited to) forest management practices, development patterns, and human behavior (intentionally or unintentionally starting fires). According to the photographer, the largest stones were 1.5 to 2.5 centimeters (0.6 to 1 inch) size. Changes in atmospheric pressure during the late fall and winter can lead to an accumulation of haze. At any rate I'd just like to point out a potential clue to your springtime predictability barrier problem. In the Southwest, average precipitation ranges from only 34 centimeters (13.4 inches) in Utah to 39.9 centimeters (15.7 inches) in Colorado, which reflects the area's general aridity. These increased temperatures lead to a whole host of other effects, including a decrease in snowpack, declines in river flow, drier soils from more evaporation, and the increased likelihood of drought and fires. Its largely too soon to tell. Stages in the formation of a thunderstorm. Shallow seaways spread over many of the continents, including South America, Africa, Eurasia, and North America. When you add in the sparse rain-gauge observations available in the U.S. Southwest and Mexico, it becomes even more difficult to make confident statements about the effects of the monsoon and how it can be predicted. 2021. Flows in late summer are correspondingly reduced, leading to extra pressure on the states water supplies. An official website of the United States government. Thanks to the region's high temperatures and low precipitation levels from summer 2020 through summer 2021, the current drought has exceeded the severity of a late-1500s megadrought that previously had been identified by the same authors as the driest in 1,200 years. Photo by Stefan Klein (Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license, image cropped and resized). These changes threaten economic productivity, public health, and the sustainability of Indigenous communities. Calf Canyon-Hermit Creek Fire near Holman, New Mexico, on May 8, 2022. The first letter of each zone in the key indicates its major classification. Convective mixing stops because the vertical column of air has turned over so that the cool air is at the bottom and the warm air is at the top. February 2023 ENSO update: the ENSO Blog investigates, part 3, How the pattern of trends across the tropical Pacific Ocean is critical for understanding the future climate, January 2023 La Nia update, and the ENSO Blog investigates, part 2, Albuquerque, NM National Weather Service office, ENSO does influence Pacific tropical storms, Tucson recorded its wettest month ever this July, Monsoon causes deadly flash flood in Arizona, Images of CO2 emissions and transport from the Vulcan project, TreeFlow: Streamflow Reconstructions from Tree Rings. A= Tropical (equatorial),B= Arid,C= Temperate (warm temperate),D= Continental (cold),E= polar. Pangaea began to break up during the Jurassic, rifting apart into continents that would drift toward their modern-day positions. Zack and Mike mention that last year was an extremely dry monsoon, and this year is extremely wet. Reconstruction created using basemap from thePALEOMAP PaleoAtlas for GPlatesand the PaleoData Plotter Program, PALEOMAP Project by C. R. Scotese (2016); map annotations by Jonathan R. Hendricks & Elizabeth J. Hermsen for PRI's[emailprotected]project (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0license). This circulation brings thunderstorms and rainfall to the monsoon region, providing much of their annual total precipitation. Hailstones from a storm in Limon, Colorado, 2010. Photo of USNM PAL 165239 by Crinoid Type Project (Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, public domain). The causes of specific weather events such as tornados and severe thunderstorms are incredibly complex, although climate change has enhanced some correlated factors, such as increased wind speed and an unstable atmosphere. Photo by Lane Pearman (flickr, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license, image cropped and resized). The cycling layers in thesandstone represent changes in the direction of prevailing winds as large sand dunes migratedacross the desert. In the late Ordovician (about 460 to 430 million years ago), the Earth fell into another brief but intense ice age. This led to global cooling and dropping global sea levels. In general, it is expected that high alpine glaciers in the Colorado Rockies will disappear as the climate continues to warm. Fossils of a cycad (Dioonopsis praespinulosa) from the Paleocene Castle Rock Flora, Colorado. Petrified log at Escalante Petrified Forest State Park, Jurassic Morrison Formation, Garfield County, Utah. Right:Dolichometoppus productus. Check out Toms recent post on the drought in Arizona to understand more about how drought works in this region. In Utah, areas below 1200 meters (4000 feet) receive less than 25 centimeters (10 inches) per year, while higher elevations in the Wasatch Mountains receive more than 100 centimeters (40 inches). This chapter builds on assessments of climate change in the Southwest region from the three previous U.S. National Climate Assessments. A lock (LockA locked padlock) or https:// means youve safely connected to the .gov website. A strong difference in air temperature at different heights creates instability; the warmer the air near the surface is relative to the air above it, the more potential (stored) energy the warm air has to move up, and the more potential for a storm. This page uses Google Analytics. In 2020, Colorado ranked 7th in the nation for solar and wind power production, and Arizona and New Mexico ranked 12th and 13th, respectively. ; Precipitation was above-average across portions of the Great Basin and Southwest, from the southern Plains to the Great Lakes and across much of the eastern U.S. Mississippi had its wettest summer on record with Alabama, Michigan, New York and Massachusetts . In winter, daily temperatures in the southwest are cooler with highs in the 50s and 60s F, and lows in . An ancient horse (Mesohippus),Eocene Florissant Fossil Beds, Teller County, Colorado. Parts of the Southwest are also experiencing long-term reductions in mountain snowpack (see the Snowpack indicator), which accounts for a large portion of the regions water supply. Well those extra storms probably just go somewhere else because of the change in wind pattern that the El Nino brings, eh? These changes to rain and snow-pack are already stressing water sources and affecting agriculture. Some of these thunderstorms can be strong, delivering heavy rain and frequent lightning. Figures 2 and 3 show two ways of measuring drought in the Southwest: the Drought Monitor and the Palmer Drought Severity Index. As the Cambrian progressed, North America moved northward, and what would become much of the southwestern U.S. was located near the Tropic of Capricorn. Natural variability, changes in irrigation practices, and other diversions of water for human use can influence certain drought-related measurements. The cities of Aspen and Lafayette, Colorado, as well as the state of New Mexico, were early adopters of the 2030 Challenge, an effort to reduce fossil fuel use in buildings so that both new and renovated buildings would qualify as carbon neutral by the year 2030. What is the weather like in the Southwest region in summer? Photo by James St. John (flickr,Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license, image cropped and resized). Figure by Ingrid Zabel for PRI's [emailprotected] project (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license). NWS Climate Prediction Center College Park MD. Please click here to see any active alerts. You mentioned, if I understood correctly, that a La Nina pattern during winter months leads to an increase in the North American Monsoon in late summer. Introduction The overall climate of the Southwestits weather patterns over a long period of timetends to be warm and dry. 3. 4. Download related technical information PDF, https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/DmData/DataTables.aspx, A Closer Look: Temperature and Drought in the Southwest. The March-April-May (MAM) 2023 temperature outlook favors below-normal. Reconstruction created usingPaleomap(by C. Scotese) forGPlates. (2011)PLoS ONE3(7): e2791(Creative Commons Attribution license, image reorganized and resized). (3) There is a whole lot of interesting detail in this reportabout everything, but about the North American Monsoon specifically. Average annual temperatures for the southwestern U.S. The daily range between maximum and minimum temperatures sometimes runs as much as 50 to 60 degrees F during the drier periods of the year. A car with a windshield damaged by hailstones, Limon, Colorado, 2010. Green areas mean drought is likely to end. Photo by Gregory Smith (flickr, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license, image cropped and resized). Photo by James St. John (flickr, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license, image resized). The formation of precipitation also causes electrical charging of particles in the atmosphere, which in turn produces lightning. That's at least one part of a very big climate puzzle crossing that barrier that involves both the ocean and atmosphere. Accessed March 2021. www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag. NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). Photo by James St. John (flickr, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license, image cropped and resized). Data source: National Drought Mitigation Center, 20213Web update: April2021. The geography and climate of the southwestern U.S. east of the Rocky Mountains (in other words, in the Great Plains region in Colorado and New Mexico) are nearly ideal for their formation of thunderstorms and tornados, especially in the summer. Satellite photo showing smoke from the Calf Canyon-Hermit Creek Fire on May 10, 2022. The location of the Southwest and the topographical extremes across this area strongly influence its weather.
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