Photo by Jeffrey Beall (Wikimedia Commons,Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license, image resized). The onset of stream flows from melting snow in Colorado has shifted two weeks earlier due to warming spring temperatures. Ive summarized their conclusions above, and include the quotes here, but I suggest you head over to the full science report if youre in the mood for some specifics. Copyright 2021 Paleontological Research Institution. Percent of total annual precipitation occurring during JulySeptember, based on 19792020 using CPC Unified rain-gauge-based data. Taken on August 15, 2016. Data source: NOAA, 20214Web update: April2021, Key Points | Background | About the Data | Technical Documentation. (2019)Biology Letters15: 20190114(Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license, images cropped, reconfigured, resized, and relabeled). Right:Dolichometoppus productus. Calf Canyon-Hermit Creek Fire near Holman, New Mexico, on May 8, 2022. Extensive Permian deposits throughout the Southwest are home to a host of fossils, including terrestrial amphibians, reptiles, and synapsids. (2011)PLoS ONE3(7): e2791(Creative Commons Attribution license, image reorganized and resized). Frequent showers and thunderstorms continue well into the summer. In the podcast episode 2021a generational monsoon? Zack listed some of the factors that influence how much moisture is available to the monsoon, including the position of the high-pressure area, wind patterns, and transient weather features. Precipitation has become more variable from year to year, and heavy downpours across the U.S. have increased in the last 20 years. 2021. In general, places in the east and south of the UK tend to be drier, warmer, sunnier and less windy than those further west and north. Also extreme dryness which means days & weeks on end without rain. In southern New Mexico, Pleistocene fossil mammals are found that now live at higher elevations in the mountains of northern New Mexico, indicating cooler temperatures and more available moisture in the area during the late Pleistocene. Download related technical information PDF, https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/DmData/DataTables.aspx, A Closer Look: Temperature and Drought in the Southwest. Data for Figure 2 were provided by the National Drought Mitigation Center. Thus, each Southwestern state experiences both extreme highs and lows. Accessed March2021. www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag. It depends where you are! Image fromCretaceous Atlas of Ancient Life: Western Interior Seaway(Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Internationallicense). Rainfall, as anyone who has read the ENSO Blog before will know, is an extremely complicated thing to predict! The distance between Santa Fe and Las Vegas, New Mexico, is about 65 kilometers (about 40.5 miles). He pointed out that ENSO does influence Pacific tropical storms, which can supply moisture to the monsoon. Brown indicates where precipitation has been less than average; green is greater than average. A= Tropical (equatorial),B= Arid,C= Temperate (warm temperate),D= Continental (cold),E= polar. Arizona's highest elevations receive an average of 65 to 76 centimeters (25 to 30 inches), with lower areas in the states southwestern portion averaging less than 8 centimeters (3 inches). The Central American Isthmus, which today makes up most of Panama and Costa Rica, rose out of the ocean at approximately this time, formed by undersea volcanoes. 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. For example San Diego county has a population of azalea otherwise not seen for hundreds of miles to the north. These are blog posts, not official agency communications; if you quote from these posts or from the comments section, you should attribute the quoted material to the blogger or commenter, not to NOAA, CPC, or Climate.gov. The Southwest is also definable, to an extent, by environmental conditions - primarily aridity. These oases were fed by groundwater that originated in the higher country of what is now western Colorado. The Southwest Region climate in the United States is often associated with extremes. Before the Isthmus closed, the Atlantic and Pacific oceans were connected. Photo by Dr. David Goodrich, NOAA (NOAA Photo Library ID wea04192, NOAA's National Weather Service, via flickr, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license, image cropped and resized). Agua Caliente solar farm, Maricopa County, Arizona. There is some variability in the onset and demise of the monsoon. The monsoon's intensity waned by the early Jurassic, and the rivers and floodplains were replaced by even larger deserts. Photo by Eltiempo10 (Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license, image resized). The highest point in these mountains has a relief of 1572 meters (5157 feet) over the surrounding landscape, and the mountains are tall enough to receive snowfall. Where the land was exposed, deposits of dust (loess) accumulated and were blown across much of the Southwest. Andrews Glacier in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado, at two points in time. Water supply is an important issue in the Southwest, and communities will need to adapt to changes in precipitation, snowmelt, and runoff as the climate changes. Brown indicates areas where experts forecast drought will persist or worsen. MacDonald, G.M. Changes in atmospheric pressure during the late fall and winter can lead to an accumulation of haze. Image by The High Fin Sperm Whale, created from images by NOAA National Weather Service training material (Wikimedia Commons, public domain). JavaScript appears to be disabled on this computer. The impacts of the monsoon go beyond just rainfall amounts. Fossil mammals adapted to colder temperatures are found in the Pleistocene of Colorado. [7] Pion pines are very drought tolerant and have survived dry periods in the past. A blog about monitoring and forecasting El Nio, La Nia, and their impacts. 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. Right (2):Crown of leaves from a mature plant. The formation of precipitation also causes electrical charging of particles in the atmosphere, which in turn produces lightning. Climate models project a significant increase in the number of days over 95F per year across the Southeast. Thanks thats a big pool of warm water larger than the gulf of California and warmer than the greater Pacific Ocean. | View Google Privacy Policy. Monsoon rainfall activity tends to be grouped into bursts, with periods of rainy days interspersed with drier periods, rather than rain every day. Deer mice are the most important rodent carriers of hantavirus in the Southwest. Shelly sandstones in Utah represent vast tidal flats. PRI is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. This figure uses the U.S. Drought Monitor classification system, which is described in the table in the Droughtindicator. Photoandreconstructionby National Park Service/NPS (public domain). The elevation of Bear Lake is about 2880 meters (9450 feet). A shift in plant type to those better adapted to drier conditions further suggests a change in climate during the Permian. 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. Fossil plants, Late Cretaceous Fruitland Formation, San Juan Basin, New Mexico. Average annual preciptiation for the southwestern U.S. Drier conditions occurred through the 1920s/1930s, again in the 1950s, and since 1990, when the Southwest has seen some of the most persistent droughts on record (see Figure 3). In the latest Cretaceous, sea level dropped again and the western Southwest became a broad coastal plain that hosted lush forests, abundant dinosaurs, and large swamps. Left photoandright photoby NPS/Michael Quinn (Grand Canyon National Park via flickr,Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license, images cropped and resized). Pangaea was completed when North America finally collided with Gondwana. Maps and data. Storms form when there is strong convection in the atmosphere. By the start of the Late Cretaceous, this inland sea, called the Western Interior Seaway, divided North America in two; the water was rich with mosasaurs, giant clams, and other marine life. Submitted by rebecca.lindsey on Thu, 09/30/2021 - 10:13. Photo by James Bo Insogna. This mortality is attributed to higher temperatures, drought, and the eruption of bark beetles that are able to survive through warmer winter weather. Digital Encyclopedia of Earth Science: Why talk about climate change? Image adapted from an image by Scenarios for Climate Assessment and Adaptation, first published in The Teacher-Friendly Guide to the Earth Science of the Southwestern US. Photograph by Julia Manzerova (Flickr;Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license; image resized). | View Google Privacy Policy. During winter months, daytime temperatures may average 70 degrees F, with night temperatures often falling to freezing of slightly below in the lower desert valleys." Across New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah, summer rains originate from moisture brought into the area from the Gulf of Mexico. Here on Earth: Regional Guides to Earth Science, Earth Science of the Southwestern United States, Climate of the Southwestern United States. Left (1):Leaves of a seedling. A strong temperature difference at different heights creates instability. Go to the full list of resources about the climate of the southwestern U.S. Go to the full list of general resources about climate. Record high temperatures for the Southwest range from 53C (128F) in Arizona to 47C (117F) in Utah, while record low temperatures range from 56C (69F) in Utah to 40C (40F) in Arizona. The climate remained warm, despite large southern ice sheets, but it had grown much drier. Although the mountain building that occurred during this event was mostly far to the east, the Southwest was influenced by both fluctuating sea levels and a few significant tectonic changes. 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. For the climate on early Earth prior to 541 million years ago, see the Introduction to Climate section. Ornithopod-type tracks, Powell Fossil Track Block Tracksite, Jurassic Navajo Sandstone, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, Arizona and Utah. Northwestern Mexico receives upwards of 75% of its average annual precipitation from it, and Arizona and New Mexico more than 50%, during JulySeptember. And yet another element of the monsoon system that needs more study to resolve. This movement of air in different directions is also the reason for the high incidence of powerful tornados that occur along "Tornado Alley" in the Great Plains, which affect eastern New Mexico and especially eastern Colorado. As the Triassic period began, the Southwest moved north from the equator. Its remnant exists today as the Great Salt Lake. Since the early 1900s, the Southwest has experienced wetter conditions during three main periods: the 1900s, 1940s, and 1980s. Scale bar = 5 centimeters (about 2 inches). The state's highest temperatures occur in the northeastern plains, where they can exceed 46C (115F). As the continents moved closer to their modern positions, the Southwest experienced a hot and humid tropical climate. 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). Zack also mentioned our good friend El Nio! 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 and Elizabeth J. Hermsen for PRI's[emailprotected]project (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0license). Reconstruction created using basemap from the PALEOMAP PaleoAtlas for GPlatesand the PaleoData Plotter Program, PALEOMAP Project by C. R. Scotese (2016); map annotations by Jonathan R. Hendricks for PRI's[emailprotected]project (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0license). There is a rich marine fossil record from the areas between these islands. 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. SW Precipitation Precipitation in the Southwest has two distinct seasons. The average precipitation for the United States is 85.6 centimeters (33.7 inches). The event devastated the Southwest, shifting a densely forested landscape to one primarily covered with fast-growing herbs and ferns. There is also an important relationship between rainfall and temperature: usually, more rain leads to cooler conditions, and less rain leads to hotter conditions. People in the Southwest are particularly dependent on surface water supplies like Lake Mead, which are vulnerable to evaporation. Dry air is shown in orange. Glaciers in the Colorado Rockies are sustained largely by avalanches and wind-blown snow. While two indicators in this report present information about unusually high or low temperatures and drought on a national scale (see the High and Low Temperatures indicator and the Drought indicator), this feature highlights the Southwest because of its particular sensitivity to temperature and drought. Earth 150 million years ago, near the end of the Jurassic Period. (Going forward, to avoid having to say northwestern Mexico, Arizona, and New Mexico over and over, Ill refer to this area as the monsoon region.). This salt is part of the Late Carboniferous (Pennsylvanian) Paradox Formation. Cambrian trilobites from the Bright Angel Shale (Tonto Group), Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona. The Southwest has a hot desert climate, at lower elevations. Photo by Daniel Mayer (Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license, image resized). Fig. Introduction The overall climate of the Southwestits weather patterns over a long period of timetends to be warm and dry. The new dry-land isthmus blocked the warm ocean currents that had been flowing east-to-west from the Atlantic to the Pacific for more than 100 million years, diverting them into the Gulf of Mexico and ultimately into the western Atlantic Gulf Stream. Later in the Jurassic, the climate became more moderate; dune fields were replaced by rivers and floodplains populated by a rich dinosaur fauna (exemplified by the Morrison Formation) and large trees along rivers, streams, and grasslands. A lock (LockA locked padlock) or https:// means youve safely connected to the .gov website. More on that later Now, lets take a sojourn through some North American Monsoon basics (1). The American Southwest might evoke images of a hot, dry landscapea land of rock, canyons, and deserts baked by the sun. Flows in late summer are correspondingly reduced, leading to extra pressure on the states water supplies. Photo of USNM PAL 165239 by Crinoid Type Project (Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, public domain). Wind moves the air, promoting mixing. The satellite loop in this post shows Gulf of Mexico moisture moving west into the monsoon region. NWS Climate Prediction Center College Park MD. . Photo by Lane Pearman (flickr, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license, image cropped and resized). Satellite photo showing smoke from the Calf Canyon-Hermit Creek Fire on May 10, 2022. What is the weather like in the Southwest region in summer? Photo of USNM P 38052 by Frederic Cochard (Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, public domain). Eventually, a sheet of sea ice formed over the Arctic, and ice sheets spread over northern Asia, Europe, and North America, signaling the start of the most recent ice age. The location of the Southwest and the topographical extremes across this area strongly influence its weather. Declining water supplies, reduced agricultural yields, health impacts in cities due to heat, and flooding and erosion in coastal areas are additional concerns. Every part of the Southwest experienced higher average temperatures between 2000 and 2020 than the long-term average (1895-2020). Photo of USNM 166396 from the Cretaceous Atlas of Ancient Life(Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license, image cropped). Left:Jaw with teeth. Rainfall associated with the monsoon is very important for the region. Bear Lake and Glacier Gorge, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado, 2011. As Pangaea reached its greatest size during the early Triassic, the monsoons intensity increased, and the vast dune deserts of the late Permian were replaced by rivers and floodplains. The climate was drier than that of the Carboniferous, and mudflats with salt and gypsum formed across the Southwestern states. Four of western North America's major watersheds lie within its boundaries: the Colorado River basin, the Rio Grande basin, the Sacramento-San Joaquin watershed, and most of the Great Basin. Unless otherwise indicated, text and images on this website have Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licenses. Hailstones from a storm in Limon, Colorado, 2010. The last glacial advance of the modern ice age peaked some 18,000 years ago. Raucous summer thunderstorms characteristic of the monsoon season are spotty, while drizzly winter storms last longer and engulf large portions of the region. As of June 2022, it was more than 90% contained. There was likely little or no glacial ice anywhere on Earth, and temperatures were highest in lower latitudes. Resilient Bermudagrass is widely used in the region, but sufficient watering is essential in the desert climate . Center:As warm air rises, cool air sinks. Saguaro and cholla cacti in the Sonoran Desert National Monument, Arizona. Left:Warm air rises. This planting zone combines saline water and alkaline soil with intense sunlight, high temperatures and varying elevations. Columbian mammoth (Mammuthus columbi) tracks, Pleistocene, White Sands National Park, New Mexico. Photo by Santa Fe National Forest (National Interagency Fire Center on flickr, public domain). The final ingredient is wind. The oceans between Gondwana and North America began to close. Temperature and drought data come from a network of thousands of weather stations overseen by the National Weather Service. Data for Figures 1 and 3 were obtained from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrations National Centers for Environmental Information, which maintains a large collection of climate data online at: www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag. Fossils of a cycad (Dioonopsis praespinulosa) from the Paleocene Castle Rock Flora, Colorado. Is the tropical storm season done for this part of the country? Modified from a map by Adam Peterson (Wikimedia Commons,Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license). Large lakes covered parts of northern Utah and Colorado. Convection occurs when buoyant warm air rises (moves up) while denser cool air sinks (moves down). Note that the southwestern region of the U.S. is covered by a shallow sea. The average amount of precipitation for the United States is 85.6 centimeters (33.7 inches). The map in Figure 1 shows how average annual temperatures in the Southwest from 2000 to 2020differed from the average over the entire period since widespread temperature records became available (18952020). Photograph by "Cathy" (Flickr;Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical 2.0 Generic license). Photo by Bob Wick, Bureau of Land Management (flickr, public domain). Summer temperatures in this region rarely rise above 60 F during the day, while winter temperatures hover around 30 F due to the temperate . One especially alarming detail about the Calf Canyon fire is that it was originally set in January 2022. The summer precipitation total for the CONUS was 9.48 inches, 1.16 inch above average, ranking eighth wettest in the historical record. Despite the areas arid climate, the dunes were surprisingly full of life, particularly in southeastern Utah. In 2000-2003, the combination of severe drought and unusually high temperatures led to a significant die-off of pion pines in the Four Corners region of the Southwest. Las Cruces is located in the Basin and Range region of New Mexico. Precipitation accumulation over the past 12 months, shown as a percent of the average mid-August through mid-August total. Please click here to see any active alerts. See the Drought indicator for more information about these indices. Some areas were more than2F warmer than average (see Figure 1). The globe about 485 million years ago, near the Cambrian-Ordovician boundary. JulyAugust rainfall anomaly averaged over North American Monsoon region for every year 19502019 (y-axis) versus Nio-3.4 index (x-axis). The better known of these wet seasons is the summer monsoon, which lasts from about mid-June to early September. All of these plants, animals, and people need water to survive. The pyrocumulonimbus cloud shown at the arrow was created by heat from the fire. Today, most of the Southwest experiences about 17 fewer freezing days than it did over the last century. Although there has been a fair amount of research into the monsoon, there are still far more questions than answers about how it works, and if the seasonal amount of rain, potential start date, or other characteristics can be predicted. Large portions of the Southwest have experienced drought conditions since weekly Drought Monitor records began in 2000. Photo by Kenneth Carpenter (Wikimedia Commons,Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license, image cropped and resized). Global temperatures fell further in the late Miocene thanks to the formation of the Himalayas. As of 2010, bark beetles in Arizona and New Mexico have affected more than twice the forest area burned by wildfires in those states. This page uses Google Analytics. (3) There is a whole lot of interesting detail in this reportabout everything, but about the North American Monsoon specifically. The full time series for precipitation and temperature values is shown in Figure 2. As a result of displacement due to continental rifting and seafloor spreading, sea level throughout the Cretaceous was much higher than it is today. Photo by James St. John (flickr, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license). An ancient horse (Mesohippus),Eocene Florissant Fossil Beds, Teller County, Colorado. 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). Photo by James St. John (flickr,Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license, image cropped and resized). Approximately 3.5 million years ago, glacial ice began to form over the Arctic Ocean and on the northern parts of North America and Eurasia. North America's position near the equator kept its climate relatively warm. After the end-Cretaceous bolide impact, the climate may have cooled briefly, but it soon rebounded to a warmer state. Summer temperatures on the South Rim, at 7000 feet (2134 meters), are especially pleasant from 50 to about 85 F (10s to 20s C). The strengthened Gulf Stream carried more warm, moist air with it into the northern Atlantic, which caused increased snowfall in high latitudes, leading to accelerating cooling. Allmon, W. D., T. A. Smrecak, and R. M. Ross. 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). Map modified from amap by Chiche Ojeda (Wikimedia Commons,Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license, image cropped and modified). Cumbres in the San Juan Mountains receives nearly 7.6 meters (300 inches) of snowfall annually, while Manassa, less than 50 kilometers (30 miles) away in the San Luis Valley, receives only about 63 centimeters (25 inches) of snow a year. The result may be more destructive wildfires like the Calf Canyon-Hermit Peak wildfire in New Mexico. I did a quick comparison of the average JulyAugust rainfall in the monsoon region with the Nio-3.4 index, using 70 years of records. Bark beetles, which normally die in cold weather, have been able to survive through the winter and reproduce, increasing tree mortality. However, while the effect of warming on the storms is uncertain, temperatures have been increasing. During the winter, moisture travels from the west, as storms from the Pacific Ocean move east. Extreme high temperatures. These changes include the following: The seasonality and transmission frequency of insect-borne diseases and other infectious diseases prevalent in the Southwest, including plague, valley fever, and Hanta, are influenced by warming trends. ; 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 . 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. A crinoid (Ibexocrinus lepton) from the Ordovician Kanosh Shale, Millard County, Utah. As the summer heat builds over North America, a region of high pressure forms over the U.S. Southwest, and the wind becomes more southerly, bringing moisture from the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of California. In the middle Cretaceous, oceans covered most of the Southwest, with the exception of parts of Arizona and New Mexico. The Southwest is typically dry, hot, and humid. 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. Scattered pockets of drier, Mediterranean temperatures can also be found. Average yearly tornado watches in each county of the United States between 1993 and 2012.
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