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Regarding this lake discussion, I been trying to find out how many lakes there are in Texas. One source said 150, another 250 and the most I saw was 6,000. Only one major natural lake btw, Caddo lake.
Assuming the top figure of 6,000 lakes and ponds for Texas, that sounds like a lot right? Except New York State alone has over 7,600. Since Texas is more then 5 times larger then New York, that even if Texas had 5 times the amount of lakes, 30,000, she would still be behind New York proportionally! Lakes and Rivers - NYS Dept. of Environmental Conservation
That is just how many lakes are in the Northeast and similar areas like the Upper Midwest. And if you really want to be blown away about lakes, take a look at a map of Ontario, especially northern Ontario.
Pretty much all low-latitude areas lack in lakes compared to far northerly latitudes: no glaciers to carve the land. Even the Southern Hemisphere high latitudes lack lakes, as there is too little landmass.
The Great Salt Lake has tributaries that help maintain the water, or it would have completely dried up. But overall, it shows that even desert areas can maintain lakes under the right circumstances, meaning that dryness in areas of Texas shouldn't be an impediment (provided that the geography was ideal).
I am not saying Great Salt lake doesn't have tributaries I'm saying it doesn't have an outlet. All the water than Falls in the Great Basin ends up in Great Salt lake until it evaporates. Almost all other lares in the Country has outflow that ends up in the Oceans. Since Great Salt lake is the terminus of its watershed it takes far less precip to maintain lake levels than any other lake in the US.
I am not saying Great Salt lake doesn't have tributaries I'm saying it doesn't have an outlet. All the water than Falls in the Great Basin ends up in Great Salt lake until it evaporates. Almost all other lares in the Country has outflow that ends up in the Oceans. Since Great Salt lake is the terminus of its watershed it takes far less precip to maintain lake levels than any other lake in the US.
Taking into consideration the region's desert climate (which means that precip exceeds evaporation), whatever water that flows into the lake has to be high enough to maintain constant water levels, or else it implies a period where the lake completely dries out. It also suggests a much shallower lake than other lakes in the country.
But still, my overall point in mentioning Great Salt Lake is to show that even deserts maintain lakes, given a special set-up. So the dryness that occurs in Texas (much of which is never to desert levels) shouldn't necessarily be an impediment to lakes.
I'd vote for the Northeast, but Texas is being heavily underrated here. It's a lot closer than the poll shows.
Polls don't necessarily measure the actual gap it could just be a low STD Dev. Meaning everyone believes the NE is better than Texas but not a huge gap. It's discrete Data not continuous.
I think per average square mile the NE is prettier and by that I mean hillier and greener, but Texas has alot more variety. Some parts are swamps, some southern piney woods, you have (alot) prairie, better beaches than the North East and taller mountains than anywhere back east. On average alot of Texas is pretty boring, but it has some highlights that are pretty impressive.
I've learned a long time ago there is a strong bias against Texas without facts on this site. Is it jealousy or ignorance?
Notice that people people just name general regions/cities for Texas, whereas for the Northeast, they go beyond to name every nook and cranny; this gives the illusion of Texas has less spots of nature than the NE, when it actuality may have just as much, if not more.
In all, it reflects simply that the NE takes better pride in access to nature than Texas; the region's cities made sure that dense populations can have good reach to great areas of pristine wilderness. There are plenty of interesting natural environments nearby ALL of Texas's major cities, but at this time, quite a bit of them are known only to the scientists.
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