Death Valley California

On March 25th, we visited Death Valley California. We got a chance to visit the Badwater Area. This area is some 282 feet below sea level. It consists mostly of salt and borax. See the white surface of the desert. This is one of the hottest places on earth. We encountered a fox, or coyote that approached our vehicle, so we took a few photos.


Death Valley








Death Valley is a desert valley located in Eastern California. Situated within the Mojave Desert, it features the lowest, driest, and hottest locations in North America. Badwater, a basin located in Death Valley, is the specific location (36° 15' N 116° 49.5' W) of the lowest elevation in North America at 282 feet (86 m) below sea level. This point is only 84.6 miles (136.2 km) ESE of Mount Whitney, the highest point in the contiguous United States with an elevation of 14,505 feet (4,421 m). Death Valley holds the record for the highest reliably reported temperature in the Western hemisphere, 134 °F (56.7 °C) at Furnace Creek on July 10, 1913, just short of the world record, 136 °F (57.8 °C) in 'Aziziya, Libya, on September 13, 1922. However, the record high still remains the hottest July temperature ever recorded.
Located near 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 is located mostly in Inyo County, California. It runs from north to south between the Amargosa Range on the east and the Panamint Range on the west; the Sylvania Mountains and the Owlshead Mountains form its northern and southern boundaries, respectively. It has an area of about 3,000 sq mi (7,800 km2). Death Valley shares many characteristics with other places below sea level.








Death Valley Sand Dunes
Death Valley is one of the best geological examples of a basin and range configuration. It lies at the southern end of a geological trough known as Walker Lane, which runs north into Oregon. The valley is bisected by a right lateral strike slip fault system, represented by 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 the valley but eventually disappear into the sands of the valley floor.
Death Valley also contains salt pans. According to current geological consensus, during the middle of the Pleistocene era there was a succession of inland seas (collectively referred to as Lake Manly) located where Death Valley is today. As the area turned to desert the water evaporated, leaving behind the abundance of evaporitic salts such as common sodium salts and borax, which were subsequently exploited during the modern history of the region, primarily 1883 to 1907.




Dunes at Death Valley, looking east towards Nevada.
As a general rule, lower altitudes tend to have higher temperatures where the sun heats the ground and that heat is then radiated upward, but as the air begins to rise it is trapped by (1) the surrounding elevation and (2) the weight of the air (essentially the atmospheric pressure) above it. The atmospheric pressure is higher at very low altitudes than it is under the same conditions at sea level because there is more air (more distance) between the ground and the top of the atmosphere. This pressure traps the heat near the ground, and also creates wind currents that circulate very hot air, thereby distributing the heat to all areas, regardless of shade and other factors.



This process is especially important in Death Valley as it provides its specific climate and geography. The valley is surrounded by mountains, while its surface is mostly flat and devoid of plants, and of which a high percentage of the sun's heat is able to reach the ground, absorbed by soil and rock. When air at ground level is heated, it begins to rise, moving up past steep high mountain ranges, which then cools slightly, sinking back down towards the valley more compressed. This air is then reheated by the sun to a higher temperature, moving up the mountain again, whereby the air moves up and down in a circular motion in cycles, similar to how a convection oven works, albeit a natural one. This superheated air increases ground temperature markedly, forming the hot wind currents that are trapped by atmospheric pressure and mountains, thus stays mostly within the valley. Such hot wind currents contribute to perpetual drought-like conditions in Death Valley and prevent much cloud formation to pass through the confines of the valley, where precipitation is often in the form of a virga. Death Valley holds temperature records because it has an unusually high number of factors that lead to high atmospheric temperatures.



Death Valley in bloom.
The depth and shape of Death Valley influence its summer temperatures. The valley is a long, narrow basin 282 feet (86 m) below sea level, yet is walled by high, steep mountain ranges. The clear, dry air and sparse plant cover allow sunlight to heat the desert surface. Summer nights provide little relief as overnight lows may only dip into the 82 to 98 °F (28 to 37 °C) range. Moving masses of super-heated air blow through the valley creating extreme high temperatures.



The hottest air temperature ever recorded in Death Valley (Furnace Creek) was 134 °F (57 °C) on July 10, 1913, at Furnace Creek, which is currently the hottest temperature ever recorded in the western hemisphere. During the heat wave that peaked with that record, five consecutive days reached 129 °F (54 °C) or above. The greatest number of consecutive days with a maximum temperature of 100 °F (38 °C) or above was 154 days 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 where temperatures reached 120 °F (49 °C) or above with 43 of them consecutive. Four major mountain ranges lie between Death Valley and the ocean, each one adding to an increasingly drier rainshadow effect, and in 1929 and 1953 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.
A Greater Roadrunner at the Death Valley National Park Visitor Center in California.
The mean annual temperature for Death Valley (Furnace Creek Weather Station) is 77.2 °F (25.1 °C) with an average high in January of around 67 °F (19 °C) and 116 °F (47 °C) in July. From 1934-1961 the weather station at Cow Creek recorded a Mean Annual Temperature of 77.2 °F (25.1 °C)°F.



The period from July 17–19, 1959, was the longest string of consecutive days where nighttime low temperatures did not drop below 100 °F (38 °C). The highest-ever nighttime low temperature in Death Valley was 103 °F (39 °C) recorded on July 5, 1970, and July 24, 2003.



The longest number of consecutive days where temperatures reached 90 °F (32 °C) or more was 205 during Apr-Oct 1992. On average there are 192 days per year in Death Valley where temperatures reach 90°F (32°C) or more.
The lowest temperature recorded at Greenland Ranch was 15 °F (−9 °C) in January 1913.
The average annual precipitation in Death Valley is 2.36 inches (60 mm), while the Greenland Ranch station averaged 1.58 inches (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 in other occasions.