42-514: Desert sun refers to the harsh solar radiation encountered in a desert environment . Desert Sun may also refer to: Desert climate 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
84-773: A few instances), dry summers, though summers are not typically as hot as hot desert climates. Unlike hot desert climates, cold desert climates tend to feature cold, dry winters. Snow tends to be rare in regions with this climate. The Gobi Desert in northern China and Mongolia is one example of a cold desert. Though hot in the summer, it shares the freezing winters of the rest of Inner Asia . Summers in South America's Atacama Desert are mild, with only slight temperature variations between seasons. Cold desert climates are typically found at higher altitudes than hot desert climates and are usually drier than hot desert climates. Cold desert climates are typically located in temperate zones in
126-493: A mile-long shallow depression in the center of the valley, supports Death Valley Pupfish . These isolated pupfish populations are remnants of the wetter Pleistocene climate. Darwin Falls , on the western edge of Death Valley Monument, falls 100 feet (30 m) into a large pond surrounded by willows and cottonwood trees. Over 80 species of birds have been recorded around the pond. Efflorescence , also known as salt flowers ,
168-565: A number of key contributors: Severe heat and dryness contribute to perpetual drought-like conditions in Death Valley and prevent much cloud formation from passing through the confines of the valley, where precipitation is often in the form of a virga . The depth and shape of Death Valley strongly influence its climate. The valley is a long, narrow basin that descends below sea level and is walled by high, steep mountain ranges. The clear, dry air and sparse plant cover allow sunlight to heat
210-637: A verified temperature of 129.2 °F (54.0 °C) was recorded and is tied with Mitribah , Kuwait , for the hottest reliably measured air temperature ever recorded on Earth. A temperature of 130 °F (54.4 °C) was recorded at the Furnace Creek weather station on August 16, 2020, but has not yet been officially verified. The valley again recorded that temperature on July 9, 2021; however, that temperature has not yet been officially verified either. The valley's lowest temperature, recorded at Greenland Ranch (now Furnace Creek) on January 2, 1913,
252-464: Is Telescope Peak , in the Panamint Range, which has an elevation of 11,043 feet (3,366 m). A group of European-American pioneers got lost here in the winter of 1849–1850, while looking for a shortcut to the gold fields of California, giving Death Valley its grim name. Although only one of the group members died here, they all assumed that the valley would be their grave. Death Valley
294-833: Is 2.36 inches (60 mm), while the Greenland Ranch station averaged 1.58 in (40 mm). The wettest month on record is January 1995, when 2.59 inches (66 mm) fell on Death Valley. The wettest period on record was mid-2004 to mid-2005, in which nearly 6 inches (150 mm) of rain fell in total, leading to ephemeral lakes in the valley and the region and tremendous wildflower blooms. Snow with accumulation has only been recorded in January 1922, while scattered flakes have been recorded on other occasions. See or edit raw graph data . In 2005, Death Valley received four times its average annual rainfall of 1.5 inches (38 mm). As it has done before for hundreds of years,
336-673: Is a desert valley in Eastern California , in the northern Mojave Desert , bordering the Great Basin Desert . It is thought to be the hottest place on Earth during summer. Death Valley's Badwater Basin is the point of lowest elevation in North America, at 282 feet (86 m) below sea level. It is 84.6 miles (136.2 km) east-southeast of Mount Whitney – the highest point in the contiguous United States , with an elevation of 14,505 feet (4,421 m). On
378-565: Is a rare occurrence in Death Valley that occurs when rain soaks into the soil and dissolves salt beneath the surface causing the ground to appear as if there is a light dusting of snow . Death Valley is home to the Timbisha tribe of Native Americans , formerly known as the Panamint Shoshone, who have inhabited the valley for at least the past millennium. The Timbisha name for the valley, tümpisa , means "rock paint" and refers to
420-566: Is determined. The precipitation threshold (in millimetres) involves first multiplying the average annual temperature in °C by 20, then adding 280 if 70% or more of the total precipitation is in the high-sun summer half of the year (April through September in the Northern Hemisphere , or October through March in the Southern), or 140 if 30–70% of the total precipitation is received during the applicable period, or 0 if less than 30% of
462-435: Is disputed; a record high low of 107 °F (42 °C) on July 12, 2012, is considered reliable. This is one of the highest values ever recorded. Also on July 12, 2012, the mean 24-hour temperature recorded at Death Valley was 117.5 °F (47.5 °C), which makes it the world's warmest 24-hour temperature on record. July 2024 was the hottest month ever recorded in Death Valley, with a mean daily average temperature over
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#1732786981954504-491: Is home to the Timbisha tribe of Native Americans, formerly known as the Panamint Shoshone , who have inhabited the valley for at least the past millennium. Death Valley is a graben —a downdropped block of land between two mountain ranges. It lies at the southern end of a geological trough , Walker Lane , which runs north to Oregon. The valley is bisected by a right lateral strike slip fault system, comprising
546-550: Is seen in sections of Africa and Arabia . During colder periods of the year, night-time temperatures can drop to freezing or below due to the exceptional radiation loss under the clear skies. However, temperatures rarely drop far below freezing under the hot subtype. Hot desert climates can be found in the deserts of North Africa such as the wide Sahara Desert , the Libyan Desert or the Nubian Desert ; deserts of
588-519: Is the highest atmospheric temperature ever recorded on the Earth's surface. (A report of a temperature of 58 °C (136 °F) in Libya in 1922 was later determined to be inaccurate.) During the heat wave that peaked with that record, five consecutive days reached 129 °F (54 °C) or higher. Some modern meteorologists now dispute the accuracy of the 1913 temperature measurement. On June 30, 2013,
630-403: Is used as an isotherm so that a location with a BW type climate with the appropriate temperature above this isotherm is classified as "hot arid subtype" ( BW h ), and a location with the appropriate temperature below the isotherm is classified as "cold arid subtype" ( BW k ). Most desert/arid climates receive between 25 and 200 mm (1 and 8 in) of rainfall annually, although some of
672-536: The California Gold Rush . It was called Death Valley by prospectors and others who sought to cross the valley on their way to the gold fields, after 13 pioneers perished from one early expedition of wagon trains. During the 1850s, gold and silver were extracted in the valley. In the 1880s, borax was discovered and extracted by mule-drawn wagons . Death Valley National Monument was proclaimed on February 11, 1933, by President Herbert Hoover , placing
714-857: The Death Valley Fault and the Furnace Creek Fault . The eastern end of the left lateral Garlock Fault intersects the Death Valley Fault. Furnace Creek and the Amargosa River flow through part of the valley and eventually disappear into the sands of the valley floor. Death Valley also contains salt pans . According to current geological consensus, at various times during the middle of the Pleistocene era, which ended roughly 10,000–12,000 years ago, an inland lake, Lake Manly , formed in Death Valley. The lake
756-953: The Horn of Africa such as the Danakil Desert or the Grand Bara Desert ; deserts of Southern Africa such as the Namib Desert or the Kalahari Desert ; deserts of West Asia such as the Arabian Desert , or the Syrian Desert ; deserts of South Asia such as Dasht-e Lut and Dasht-e Kavir of Iran or the Thar Desert of India and Pakistan; deserts of the United States and Mexico such as
798-721: The Indian Subcontinent , southwestern Africa, interior Australia, the Southwestern United States , northern Mexico , sections of southeastern Spain , the coast of Peru , and Chile . This makes hot deserts present in every continent except Antarctica. At the time of high sun (summer), scorching, desiccating heat prevails. Hot-month average temperatures are normally between 29 and 35 °C (84 and 95 °F), and midday readings of 43–46 °C (109–115 °F) are common. The world's absolute heat records, over 50 °C (122 °F), are generally in
840-804: The Mojave Desert , the Sonoran Desert or the Chihuahuan Desert ; deserts of Australia such as the Simpson Desert or the Great Victoria Desert and many other regions. In Europe , the hot desert climate can only be found on southeastern coast of Spain as well as small inland parts of southeastern, especially parts of the Tabernas Desert . Hot deserts are lands of extremes: most of them are among
882-534: The Sahara Desert such as Kufra , Libya , record an even drier 0.86 mm (0.034 in) of rainfall annually. The official weather station in Death Valley , United States reports 60 mm (2.4 in) annually, but in 40 months between 1931 and 1934 a total of just 16 mm (0.63 in) of rainfall was measured. To determine whether a location has an arid climate, the precipitation threshold
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#1732786981954924-473: The red ocher paint that can be made from a type of clay found in the valley. Some families still live in the valley at Furnace Creek. Another village was in Grapevine Canyon near the present site of Scotty's Castle . It was called maahunu in the Timbisha language , whose meaning is uncertain, although it is known that hunu means 'canyon'. The valley received its English name in 1849 during
966-652: The 30s and 40s latitudes, usually in the leeward rain shadow of high mountains, restricting precipitation from the westerly winds. An example of this is the Patagonian Desert in Argentina, bounded by the Andes ranges to its west. In the case of Central Asia, mountains restrict precipitation from the eastern monsoon . The Kyzyl Kum , Taklamakan and Katpana Desert deserts of Central Asia are other significant examples of BWk climates. The Ladakh region and
1008-744: The Arctic and Antarctic regions receive very little precipitation during the year owing to the cold, dry air freezing most precipitation. Polar desert climates have desert-like features that occur in cold desert climates, including intermittent streams, hypersaline lakes, and extremely barren terrain in unglaciated areas such as the McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica. These areas are generally classified as having polar climates because they have average summer temperatures below 10 °C (50 °F) even if they have some characteristics of extreme non-polar deserts. Death Valley Death Valley
1050-558: The afternoon of July 10, 1913, the United States Weather Bureau recorded a high temperature of 134 °F (56.7 °C) at Furnace Creek in Death Valley, which stands as the highest ambient air temperature ever recorded on the surface of the Earth. This reading, however, and several others taken in that period are disputed by some modern experts. Lying mostly in Inyo County, California , near
1092-504: The already little rainfall they receive. Covering 14.2% of Earth's land area, hot deserts are the second-most common type of climate on Earth after the Polar climate . There are two variations of a desert climate according to the Köppen climate classification : a hot desert climate ( BWh ), and a cold desert climate ( BWk ). To delineate "hot desert climates" from "cold desert climates", a mean annual temperature of 18 °C (64.4 °F)
1134-1028: The border of California and Nevada , in the Great Basin , east of the Sierra Nevada mountains, Death Valley constitutes much of Death Valley National Park and is the principal feature of the Mojave and Colorado Deserts Biosphere Reserve . It runs from north to south between the Amargosa Range on the east and the Panamint Range on the west. The Grapevine Mountains and the Owlshead Mountains form its northern and southern boundaries, respectively. It has an area of about 3,000 sq mi (7,800 km ). The highest point in Death Valley National Park
1176-926: The city of Leh in the Great Himalayas in India also have a cold desert climate. In North America, the cold desert climate occurs in the drier parts of the Great Basin Desert and the Bighorn Basin in Big Horn and Washakie County in Wyoming . The Hautes Plaines , located in the northeastern section of Morocco and in Algeria , is another prominent example of a cold desert climate. In Europe , this climate only occurs in some inland parts of southeastern Spain, such as in Lorca . Polar climate desert areas in
1218-416: The desert surface. Summer nights provide little relief: overnight lows may dip just into the 82 to 98 °F (28 to 37 °C) range. Moving masses of super-heated air blow through the valley, creating extremely high ambient temperatures. The hottest air temperature ever recorded in Death Valley was 134 °F (56.7 °C), on July 10, 1913, at Greenland Ranch (now Furnace Creek ), which, as of 2022,
1260-599: The hot deserts, where the heat potential can be the highest on the planet. This includes the record of 56.7 °C (134.1 °F) in Death Valley , which is currently considered the highest temperature recorded on Earth . Some deserts in the tropics consistently experience very high temperatures all year long, even during wintertime. These locations feature some of the highest annual average temperatures recorded on Earth, exceeding 30 °C (86 °F), up to nearly 35 °C (95 °F) in Dallol, Ethiopia . This last feature
1302-444: The hottest, the driest, and the sunniest places on Earth because of nearly constant high pressure; the almost permanent removal of low-pressure systems, dynamic fronts, and atmospheric disturbances; sinking air motion; dry atmosphere near the surface and aloft; the exacerbated exposure to the sun where solar angles are always high makes this desert inhospitable to most species. Cold desert climates ( BWk ) usually feature hot (or warm in
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1344-466: The lowest spot in the valley filled with a wide, shallow lake, but the extreme heat and aridity immediately began evaporating the ephemeral lake . The pair of images (seen at right) from NASA's Landsat 5 satellite documents the short history of Death Valley's Lake Badwater : formed in February 2005 (top) and evaporated by February 2007 (bottom). In 2005, a big pool of greenish water stretched most of
1386-494: The modern history of the region, primarily 1883 to 1907. Death Valley has a subtropical , hot desert climate ( Köppen : BWh ), with long, extremely hot summers; short, warm winters; and little rainfall. The valley is extremely dry because it lies in the rain shadow of four major mountain ranges (including the Sierra Nevada and Panamint Range ). Moisture moving inland from the Pacific Ocean must pass eastward over
1428-426: The month of 108.5 °F (42.5 °C). Four major mountain ranges lie between Death Valley and the ocean, each one adding to an increasingly drier rain shadow effect, and in 1929, 1953, and 1989, no rain was recorded for the whole year. The period from 1931 to 1934 was the driest stretch on record, with only 0.64 inches (16 mm) of rain over a 40-month period. The average annual precipitation in Death Valley
1470-549: The most consistently hot areas of Central Australia , the Sahel and Guajira Peninsula can be, due to extreme potential evapotranspiration , classed as arid with the annual rainfall as high as 430 millimetres or 17 inches. Although no part of Earth is known for certain to be rainless, in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile, the average annual rainfall over 17 years was only 5 millimetres (0.20 in). Some locations in
1512-448: The mountains to reach Death Valley; as air masses are forced upward by each range, they cool and moisture condenses, to fall as rain or snow on the western slopes. When the air masses reach Death Valley, most of the moisture in the air has already been lost and thus there is little left to fall as precipitation. The extreme heat of Death Valley is attributable to a confluence of geographic and topographic factors. Scientists have identified
1554-453: The mouths of the canyons, they widen and slow, branching out into distributary channels. The paler the fans, the younger they are. In spite of the overwhelming heat and sparse rainfall, Death Valley exhibits considerable biodiversity. Flowers, watered by snowmelt, carpet the desert floor each spring, continuing into June. Bighorn sheep , red-tailed hawks , and wild donkeys may be seen. Death Valley has over 600 springs and ponds. Salt Creek,
1596-650: The total precipitation is so received there. If the area's annual precipitation is less than half the threshold (50%), it is classified as a BW (desert climate), while 50–100% of the threshold results in a semi-arid climate. Hot desert climates ( BWh ) are typically found under the subtropical ridge in the lower middle latitudes or the subtropics , often between 20° and 33° north and south latitudes. In these locations, stable descending air and high pressure aloft clear clouds and create hot, arid conditions with intense sunshine. Hot desert climates are found across vast areas of North Africa , West Asia , northwestern parts of
1638-459: The way across the valley floor. By May 2005, the valley floor had resumed its more familiar role as Badwater Basin , salt-coated salt flats . In time, this freshly dissolved and recrystallized salt will darken. The western margin of Death Valley is traced by alluvial fans . During flash floods , rainfall from the steep mountains to the west pours through narrow canyons, picking up everything from fine clay to large rocks. When these torrents reach
1680-430: Was 15 °F (−9 °C). The highest surface temperature ever recorded in Death Valley was 201.0 °F (93.9 °C), on July 15, 1972, at Furnace Creek , which is the highest ground surface temperature ever recorded on earth, as well as the only recorded surface temperature of above 200 °F (93.3 °C). The greatest number of consecutive days with a maximum temperature of at least 100 °F (38 °C)
1722-400: Was 154, in the summer of 2001. The summer of 1996 had 40 days over 120 °F (49 °C), and 105 days over 110 °F (43 °C). The summer of 1917 had 52 days when the temperature reached 120 °F (49 °C) or above, 43 of them consecutive. The highest overnight or low temperature recorded in Death Valley is 110 °F (43 °C), recorded on July 5, 1918. However, this value
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1764-593: Was nearly 100 miles (160 km) long and 600 feet (180 m) deep. The end-basin in a chain of lakes that began with Mono Lake , in the north, and continued through basins down the Owens River Valley , through Searles and China Lakes and the Panamint Valley, to the immediate west. As the area turned to desert, the water evaporated, leaving an abundance of evaporitic salts, such as common sodium salts and borax , which were later exploited during
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