Since the early 1900s, the Southwest has experienced wetter conditions during three main periods: the 1900s, 1940s, and 1980s. Source:FEMA National Risk Index. These oases were fed by groundwater that originated in the higher country of what is now western Colorado. The American Southwest, here defined as the area between 95W and 125W and 25N and 40N, 9 covers over four million square kilometers. Photograph by Julia Manzerova (Flickr;Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license; image resized). The March-April-May (MAM) 2023 temperature outlook favors below-normal. In a broad sense, the Southwests climate is mostly dry and hot, with much of the region characterized as arid. In the middle Cretaceous, oceans covered most of the Southwest, with the exception of parts of Arizona and New Mexico. Before the Isthmus closed, the Atlantic and Pacific oceans were connected. The oceans between Gondwana and North America began to close. Calf Canyon-Hermit Creek Fire near Holman, New Mexico, on May 8, 2022. The North American Monsoon is a seasonal change in the atmospheric circulation that occurs as the summer sun heats the continental land mass. Photo by Archaeopoda (Wikimedia Commons,Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license, image cropped, resized, and labeled). Notice that North America has separated from Africa and there is a spreading center in the Central Atlantic Ocean. 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Page snapshot:Introduction to the climate of the southwestern United States, including present, past, and future climate. Download related technical information PDF, https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/DmData/DataTables.aspx, A Closer Look: Temperature and Drought in the Southwest. While this will help with the ongoing drought in the southwest, in many regions the precipitation deficit has been building for a long time. Regarding changes that have already occurred, the report finds modest evidence that the monsoon rainfall has intensified since the 1970s, and this has been partly attributed to greenhouse gas emissions. National Drought Mitigation Center. It is the largest wildfire that New Mexico has ever witnessed. 4. The more than 16 million residents of the Southwest use carbon-rich fossil fuels to provide electricity for lighting, cooling, and appliances, to fuel their transportation and industry, and to make the products they use. Moisture condenses out of the warm air as it comes into contact with cool air, forming clouds. The continued growth of Pangaea created an intense monsoonal climate, similar to that of Asia today, that affected large parts of the continent. The average precipitation for the United States is 85.6 centimeters (33.7 inches). 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. The risk of dangerous wildfires is currently very high in parts of the Southwest. Answer: Winter, June, July, and August. Used under a Creative Commons license. JavaScript appears to be disabled on this computer. Accessed March 2021. www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag. The Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary at Trinidad Lake State Park, Las Animas County, Colorado. 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). An increased frost-free season length also leads to increased water demands for agriculture and heat stress on plants. 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). Precipitation, while sparse, peaks in the summer during the monsoonal storms, and again in the winter from storms originating in the Pacific Ocean. This feature provides a closer look at trends in temperature and drought in the southwestern United States. Agriculture accounts for more than half of the Southwests water use, so any major reduction in the availability of water resources will create a serious strain on ecosystems and populations. Left:Trilobites identified asDolichometoppus productusandAlokistocare althea. The long-range forecast team breaks down region by region what to expect during the summer. See the Drought indicator for more information about these indices. Photo by James St. John (flickr, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license, image resized). Monsoon region averaged over all land gridpoints, 20N37N, 102W115W. Alaska weather and daylight varies wildly by region and season, from short-sleeves in summer to down jackets in winter; from 7 rainy days in May in Southcentral to 17 rainy days in the Inside Passage. Map by NOAA(public domain) modified for the[emailprotected]project. Water, climate change, and sustainability in the Southwest. Despite the areas arid climate, the dunes were surprisingly full of life, particularly in southeastern Utah. Rugose corals or horn corals (Turbophyllum) from the Mississippian Great Blue Limestone, Cache Canyon, northern Utah, near the border between the Basin and Range and Rocky Mountain physiographic provinces. Both fires began as prescribed burns, or fires that were set deliberately with the intention of preventing the formation of future wildfires. Like the summer monsoons, the milder storms . Another player is land-surface feedbackswetter soils provide more moisture to the air through evaporation. Like the Inside Passage, the weather in Southwest Alaska is heavily influenced by ocean currents and maritime conditions. Shelly sandstones in Utah represent vast tidal flats. Data for Figure 2 were provided by the National Drought Mitigation Center. Photo source:National Park Service (public domain). Large lakes formed in low areas, and the Southwests most striking ice age feature was Lake Bonneville, a massive pluvial lake that covered much of Utah. Despite the monsoon rainfall this year, much of the region is still in a precipitation deficit. Hey! Fossil ammonoid (Nigericeras scotti) from the Late Cretaceous Greenhorn Limestone, Baca 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). This chapter builds on assessments of climate change in the Southwest region from the three previous U.S. National Climate Assessments. however, the monsoons provide life-giving moisture in a region that is always dry. 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. Well those extra storms probably just go somewhere else because of the change in wind pattern that the El Nino brings, eh? 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. Precipitation also varies widely. On the other hand, New Mexico and northern Mexico are near or a bit below average. Deer mice are the most important rodent carriers of hantavirus in the Southwest. Precipitation accumulation over the past 12 months, shown as a percent of the average mid-August through mid-August total. Center:As warm air rises, cool air sinks. The North Rim is 8000 feet (2438meters) to 9000 feet (2743 meters) above sea level. The state's mountainous areas, however, have climate characteristics that more closely follow those found in the Colorado Rockies. NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). temperatures from Washington and northern Oregon along the northern tier of the. As the continents moved closer to their modern positions, the Southwest experienced a hot and humid tropical climate. Photo by Daniel Mayer (Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license, image resized). Because high mountains to the west and north act as a barrier to cold Arctic air masses, most areas of Utah rarely experience temperatures below freezing or prolonged periods of extreme cold. Drought outlook for the Lower 48 U.S. states in August 2022. Glaciation in the Southern Hemisphere occurred during the late Devonian, while the supercontinent Gondwana was located over the South Pole, and intensified during the early Carboniferous. These changes threaten economic productivity, public health, and the sustainability of Indigenous communities. There is also an important relationship between rainfall and temperature: usually, more rain leads to cooler conditions, and less rain leads to hotter conditions. Brown indicates where precipitation has been less than average; green is greater than average. Figure by Ingrid Zabel for PRI's [emailprotected] project (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license). Changes in atmospheric pressure during the late fall and winter can lead to an accumulation of haze. In winter, rising temperatures have increased the number of frost-free days. This fire, which started as two separate fires that merged, began in April 2022 and has since burned more than 138,000 hectares (340,000 acres) of land and over 300 homes. Average temperatures range from about 60 to 80 F in Paris, while in Nice and on the south coast they range from around 80 to 90 F. In recent years, heatwaves in Paris and elsewhere have brought record-breaking temperatures, sometimes exceeding 100 degrees F. Summer storm systems are common. Cambrian trilobites from the Bright Angel Shale (Tonto Group), Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona. Map made by Elizabeth J. Hermsen usingSimplemapprand modified in Photoshop. Low annual precipitation, clear skies, and year-round warm climate over much of the Southwest are due in large part to a quasi-permanent subtropical high-pressure ridge over the region. 2021. Modified fromFigure 11 in Kirby et al. Southwest Asia is a region of diverse climates and is generally divided into three main climate types: arid, semiarid, and temperate. Left photoandright photoby NPS/Michael Quinn (Grand Canyon National Park via flickr,Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license, images cropped and resized). (41-60 degrees.) This led to global cooling and dropping global sea levels. Temperatures in the southwest region average greater than states up North, because there isn't as much water vapor in upper level winds to screen direct sunlight. At the close of the Mesozoic, global climatealthough warmer than todaywas cooler than at the start of the era. Is the tropical storm season done for this part of the country? 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. Las Cruces is located in the Basin and Range region of New Mexico. The distance between Santa Fe and Las Vegas, New Mexico, is about 65 kilometers (about 40.5 miles). 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. 2021. At the very end of the Cretaceous, the Gulf Coast experienced an enormous disruption when a large asteroid or bolide collided with Earth in what is now the northern Yucatn Peninsula in Mexico. (2011)PLoS ONE3(7): e2791(Creative Commons Attribution license, image reorganized and resized). PRI is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Paleontological Research Institution Special Publication 38, Ithaca, NY, 200 pp. This planting zone combines saline water and alkaline soil with intense sunlight, high temperatures and varying elevations. Climate change can intensify multiple stresses that push a species past a survival threshold. Photo by James St. John (flickr,Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license, image cropped and resized). Right:Dolichometoppus productus. 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. The Santa Catalina Mountains near Tucson, Arizona are surrounded desert in which saguaro cacti grow. NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). The recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report covers observed and potential future changes in the North American Monsoon. A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States. Historic data from Livneh et al. Photo by Kenneth Carpenter (Wikimedia Commons,Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license, image cropped and resized). Photo of USNM PAL 165239 by Crinoid Type Project (Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, public domain). Winter is the driest season in New Mexico, because precipitation from eastward-traveling Pacific storms is left behind in the western mountains of Arizona and Utah. The rainfall generally has a strong diurnal cycle, meaning a daily pattern of mostly dry mornings, storms developing through the day, and most rainfall occurring in the afternoon and evening. After the end-Cretaceous bolide impact, the climate may have cooled briefly, but it soon rebounded to a warmer state. In New Mexico, for example, average annual precipitation ranges from less than 25 centimeters (10 inches) within the Great Plains and Basin and Range regions to more than 50 centimeters (20 inches) at the higher elevations to the northwest. Carbon dioxide emissions in Arizona rose through the last three decades of the 20th century and reached a peak in 2008. Photo by Gregory Smith (flickr, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license, image cropped and resized). Thus, even a small increase in temperature (which drives evaporation) or a decrease in precipitation in this already arid region can seriously threaten natural systems and society. For southern and western Colorado, the intrusions of moist air are most common from mid July into September associated with wind patterns sometimes called the Southwest Monsoon. Maps and data. Increased heat in the Pacific Ocean has altered the weather patterns of Pacific storms, decreasing snowfall in the mountains of western Utah and Arizona. Zack and Mike mention that last year was an extremely dry monsoon, and this year is extremely wet. Topics covered on this page: Present climate of the southwestern U.S.; Present temperature; Present precipitation; Severe weather; Regional climate variation; Past climate of the southwestern U.S.; Paleozoic; Mesozoic; Cenozoic; Future climate of the southwestern U.S.; Resources. Arizona monsoon cloud with lightning striking the beautiful Sonoran desert in North Scottsdale. Climate at a glance. Figure by Emily Becker. Here, the states varied topography leads to wide changes in climactic conditions that occur across short distances. Climate.gov image of original from Albuquerque, NM National Weather Service office. Since 800,000 years ago, an equilibrium has been reached between warming and cooling, with the ice caps growing and retreating primarily due to the influence of astronomical forces (i.e., the combined gravitational effects of the Earth, Sun, moon, and planets). The warm, arid Southwest region presents extreme challenges to turf grasses in low- and high-desert climates. Ill be back on my regular beat in a couple of weeks with the September ENSO update. Annual Weather SummaryNovember 2022 to October 2023. The large ice sheets in the Northern Hemisphere did not extend into the Southwest, even at their maximum area. Sand dunes started to become widespread. According to the photographer, the largest stones were 1.5 to 2.5 centimeters (0.6 to 1 inch) size. Summer temperatures in this region rarely rise above 60 F during the day, while winter temperatures hover around 30 F due to the temperate . Typically, a storm blows itself out once the warm air has moved up and the cool air has moved down. Winter- The winter in the Southwest region is mild, and hot. The reasons for this are complex and involve a combination factors. In 2020, Colorado ranked 7th in the nation for solar and wind power production, and Arizona and New Mexico ranked 12th and 13th, respectively. The Southwest's overall average high temperature of 19.2C (66.6F) and average low of 2.8C (37.0F) are indicative of a varied climate, one much less uniform than that found in many other parts of the United States. All the weather intel you need for summer 2021 is here -- including what's in store for wildfire season . Andrews Glacier in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado, at two points in time. So is climate change increasing monsoon variability? Data source: National Drought Mitigation Center, 20213Web update: April2021. 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. Facebook Tweet 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. Climate models project a significant increase in the number of days over 95F per year across the Southeast. 2. Monsoon rainfall activity tends to be grouped into bursts, with periods of rainy days interspersed with drier periods, rather than rain every day. Photo credits: 1916 photo from USGS (public domain), 2013 photo by daveynin (flickr,Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license, image resized). A lock (LockA locked padlock) or https:// means youve safely connected to the .gov website. Bark beetles, which normally die in cold weather, have been able to survive through the winter and reproduce, increasing tree mortality. How would that result in less total JulyAugust rain? Good question! In the late Ordovician (about 460 to 430 million years ago), the Earth fell into another brief but intense ice age. 2021. For the climate on early Earth prior to 541 million years ago, see the Introduction to Climate section. Convective mixing forces the moisture in warm air to condense as it comes into contact with cool air, forming vapor (clouds) and precipitation (for example, rain or hail). Copyright 2021 Paleontological Research Institution. Percent of total annual precipitation occurring during JulySeptember, based on 19792020 using CPC Unified rain-gauge-based data. The world warmed, and would stay warm through the Mesozoic. Rainfall, as anyone who has read the ENSO Blog before will know, is an extremely complicated thing to predict! Right:Graph of the lake's changing level over time. 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. The warmer the air near the surface is relative to the air above it, the more potential energy it has to move up. The final ingredient is wind. The summer precipitation total for the CONUS was 9.48 inches, 1.16 inch above average, ranking eighth wettest in the historical record. Spring- The spring in the Southwest region is cool. Drought continues to be quite severe over the southern Plains in Texas and Oklahoma due to hot and dry conditions. This figure uses the U.S. Drought Monitor classification system, which is described in the table in the Droughtindicator. This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (ARPML-250637-OMLS-22).The views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this website do not necessarily represent those of the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Colorado has a generally cool and continental climate with low humidity. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Official websites use .gov The desert experiences large temperature extremes, especially between day and night; daily temperature may change as much as 15C (60F) during the driest parts of the year. The formation of precipitation also causes electrical charging of particles in the atmosphere, which in turn produces lightning. And yet another element of the monsoon system that needs more study to resolve. Dark gray is land, white and light gray are submerged areas. Branches and leaves of an ancient conifer (Walchia dawsonii), Permian Hermit Shale, Arizona. The number of days with temperatures above 35C (95F) and nights above 24C (75F) has been steadily increasing since 1970, and the warming is projected to continue. Data: U.S. Energy Information Administration. Secure .gov websites use HTTPS Regional overview Southwest. NWS Climate Prediction Center College Park MD. Also, these favourable weather conditions usually occur more. A value between -2 and -3 indicates moderate drought, -3 to -4 is severe drought, and -4 or below indicates extreme drought. Pangaea was completed when North America finally collided with Gondwana. Photo by Bigmikebmw (Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license, image cropped). Modified from illustrations by Wade Greenberg-Brand originally published inThe Teacher-Friendly Guide to the Earth Science of the SouthwesternUS. The Southwest has a hot desert climate, at lower elevations. In fact, this monsoon may turn out to be the wettest on record for some places! During this time, the only exposed areas were islands in western Colorado and parts of New Mexico. Reconstruction created using basemap from the. 2010. Wildfire risk map for the United States. Higher elevations (such as those found in the Rockies and on the Colorado Plateau) are also cooler, with approximately a 1.5C (3F) decrease in mean annual temperature for each 300-meter (1000-foot) increase in elevation. 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." Rainfall associated with the monsoon is very important for the region. Extreme high temperatures. While most of the evidence for cooling at the Eocene-Oligocene boundary comes from the deep sea, fossil mammals in the Rocky Mountains show clear evidence of a change from forests to grasslands, which is associated with global cooling. The climate was drier than that of the Carboniferous, and mudflats with salt and gypsum formed across the Southwestern states. 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. These warmer temperatures and increased precipitation have helped bring on longer growing seasons. Most models predict a decrease in winter and spring precipitation by the middle of the century, and more frequent precipitation extremes during the last half of the century. An official website of the United States government. For extended periods from 2002 to 2005 and from 2012 to2020, nearly the entire region was abnormally dry or even drier (see Figure 2). Glaciers in the Colorado Rockies are sustained largely by avalanches and wind-blown snow. Scale bar = 1 centimeter (about 0.4 inches). Winds and waves shape the landscape, and rain showers support lush vegetation. During the Permian, shallow marine waters gave way to lowland coastal areas across portions of the Southwest. Streamflow totals for the decade of 2001-2010 in the Great Basin, Rio Grande, and Colorado River were between 5% and 37% lower than their 20. Introduction The overall climate of the Southwestits weather patterns over a long period of timetends to be warm and dry. Fig. Declining water supplies, reduced agricultural yields, health impacts in cities due to heat, and flooding and erosion in coastal areas are additional concerns. Global temperatures during the Cretaceous were very warm, as much as 10C (18F) above those at present. Submitted by rebecca.lindsey on Thu, 09/30/2021 - 10:13. The North American monsoon, variously known as the Southwest monsoon, the Mexican monsoon, the New Mexican monsoon, or the Arizona monsoon is a pattern of pronounced increase in thunderstorms and rainfall over large areas of the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico, typically occurring between June and mid-September.During the monsoon, thunderstorms are fueled by daytime heating . Every part of the Southwest experienced higher average temperatures between 2000 and 2020than the long-term average (18952020). [7] Pion pines are very drought tolerant and have survived dry periods in the past. A shift in plant type to those better adapted to drier conditions further suggests a change in climate during the Permian. Las Cruces, New Mexico, 2006. PRI's free resource to help you learn about the Earth and its history. Pangaea began to break up during the Jurassic, rifting apart into continents that would drift toward their modern-day positions. Photo by Richard Stephen Haynes (Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license, image resized). 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. 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. For temperature, the 2020 monsoon was the hottest on record for the Southwest with an average temperature of 77.1 F, significantly beating the previous record of 76.8 F in 2011 (average is 74.3 F). Left photoandright photofrom NPS, courtesy David Bustos (public domain). The book was adapted for the web by Elizabeth J. Hermsen, Jonathan R. Hendricks, and Ingrid Zabel in 2022. In southern New Mexico and Arizona, shallow marine deposits, laid down when the ice in Gondwana retreated and sea level rose, alternate with layers of dust blown in when the ice in Gondwana advanced and sea level fell. Average yearly tornado watches in each county of the United States between 1993 and 2012. 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. Photo of USNM 166396 from the Cretaceous Atlas of Ancient Life(Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license, image cropped). 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. Storms form when there is strong convection in the atmosphere. Scale bar = 5 centimeters (about 2 inches). The current drought outlooks expect that the drought in Arizona and New Mexico will improve in the short term, but persist. Recent warming within the Southwest has been among the most rapid in the United States, and models predict that the area's climate will continue to warm. Here on Earth: Regional Guides to Earth Science, Earth Science of the Southwestern United States, Climate of the Southwestern United States. Winter will be warmer than normal, with above-normal precipitation. Left imageandright imageby NickLongrich (Wikimedia Commons,Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license, images cropped and resized). Fossils of a cycad (Dioonopsis praespinulosa) from the Paleocene Castle Rock Flora, Colorado.