Los Angeles is not a Desert. Stop Calling it one (San Diego: transfer, agricultural)

[zagyzebra]

Who authored the source quotes in the big blue box? They are both brilliantly written.

[Bunjee]

Another thing people mistake is agricultural import of water versus municipal. Because of its proximity to San Bernardino mountain snow, the Inland Empire's municipal water supply is local. The Riverside water district imports only up to about 3% of its water supply when necessary. Of all SoCal its ironically the "desert" residents who aren't "stealing" anyone's water.

"Oh. I didn't know that."

[psr13]

I have never heard someone refer to LA as the desert. Also, the mountains are only green in the winter. They are brown the rest of the year.

[New Horizons]

Originally Posted by Fontucky

Rain forests are beautiful too. Let's compare LA to a rain forest.

That would be comparing it to something totally opposite. LA may not be considered the desert, but why do you think it's so nice and dry there in the first place? Answer: Because you border a desert, you just have that nice pacific to offset the heat. Not everything is a black and white issue, there are shades of grey in between. LA isn't the desert, but it shares some similarities with it. And that's a good thing.

Originally Posted by Chicano3000X

No.. Just no my friend. I HATE extremely hot weather. LA is not a desert thank god. I lived in 29 Palms, been to Arizona, Utah, and Vegas. It's like an uncomfortable blanket of heat covering your whole body and no way to take it off. Pool days? Cool. Other than that, HELLL NO!

Naa...I can handle it. After 40 years in this swamp, no problem. I can handle being hot, I just don't like being drenched in sweat.

[jorge112597]

los angeles is not a desert, its not as dry, or cold in the winter. in winter nights in LA it can be 50s or 40s and in the desert it will be in the 30s below freezing.

[Huckleberry3911948]

1/3 of CA is desert.
without water imports a lot of CA would look like bakersville.

[BayAreaHillbilly]

Originally Posted by Fontucky

You've seen yuccas in the Cucamonga Valley?

I've seen them in some surprising places. I've seen them in some dry spots (rocky, south facing, steep, etc) in the Santa Cruz Mountains. In the Northern Santa Lucias (e.g. NW Monterey County) they are prolific (those are probably some of the furthest north major collections of them near the coast). I even have a few odd clumps on my property (Santa Cruz Mountain spurs in Central San Mateo County) - I'm on typical Franciscan Formation - very thin depleted highly weathered soil, lots of outcrops of jasper / schlickensides / metamorphosed shale / schist. Natives at our place range from said yuccas, up through chaparral, Coast Live Oak and once in a while a stray Douglas Fir which I eradicate due to the fire hazard.

[Harrier]

Originally Posted by genjy

In a real desert (Victorville, deep IE, Barstow, etc), the mountains there tend to be a tan, brown color.

The mountain backdrops in LA and OC are all green.

Or white - in winter.

I live in a part of LA County where I can't see the mountains - but there should be snow on them now.

Is there?

[Harrier]

Originally Posted by Huckleberry3911948

1/3 of CA is desert.
without water imports a lot of CA would look like bakersville.

LOL!

Let's do our best to avoid such a calamity.

[genjy]

Originally Posted by Harrier

Or white - in winter.

I live in a part of LA County where I can't see the mountains - but there should be snow on them now.

Is there?

I haven't really looked these past few days. I know there was snow on the mountains north of LA County when we had that cold and rainy weather earlier this month.

Mt. Baldy/Mt. San Antonio (just barely on the SB County side) always has snow around this time, though.