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I get that, heat rises, the more air gets warmer and the quicker, the more there is a difference between the surrounding air in terms of temperature which causes more air to rise more quickly which causes storms.
No, rising air, heated air does not somehow just turn into a storm. If that were the case, deserts would be nothing but a daily storm. In fact, almost everywhere would be daily storms.
I'm not sure...the uber-dry parts of the SW in the summer are mostly in rain shadows (sometimes multiple ones like the Death Valley), and I still don't see anywhere that averages 0.00 inches of rain in the summer months like many places around the Persian Gulf do. The Persian Gulf is also a lot more humid on average, with the highest dew points in the world having been recorded there. It is interesting though that there are some places in the Arabian Peninsula with wet monsoon patterns, and I agree that the SW monsoon is very elevation-dependent. I wouldn't call it over-hyped because there are some places like Nogales, Arizona, where more than half their annual rainfall comes from the monsoon season.
The Persian Gulf is indeed quite dry during summer. But, as mentioned prior, if you look at the humid desert Sea of Cortez shoreline in places like Puerto Peñasco, Baja California, etc, you'll find that they are similarly as dry during summer as the Persian Gulf despite also being right on a warm body of water. Considering the comparitive wetness of corresponding mainland Mexico at Guaymas, Hermosillo, etc, it is clear that specific setups regarding monsoonal circulations play a role regarding exact rainfall totals — even when factoring in elevation.
Likewise, we can see that the summer dryness weakens as we head east from the Persian Gulf towards Karachi in Pakistan and onward — it also weakens as you head south down the Arabian Peninsula to places like Yemen and Oman, as well as equatorward down Somalia (although rainfall along the equator tends to favor the equinox periods, making the summer relationship harder to see).
As alluded to prior, it is quite possible as well that the patterns that we see now across the peninsula (and across the MENA region as a whole) are a drier period, compared to the wetter summers that were said to have happened during the peak of the African Humid Period.
In addition, the RH mechanism could also provide explanation regarding the summer dryness of the Persian Gulf — it is an alternative explanatory theory designed to cover for the deficiencies of the common Hadley-Horse Latitudes theory regarding desert formation/persistence, especially during summer when the Hadley Cell is supposed to be weaker. The RH was concieved with focus on the relationship between the heavy rain convection of the Indian subcontinent versus the subsident, arid climates found to the west in the Middle East — however, the process can also be applied to other continents during their respective summer seasons.
Low pressure systems-- think cold fronts, cyclones. That's the Australian perspective on weather instability. And so, there is near-permanent instability in the Southern Ocean; and near-nonexistent instability north of the Horse Latitudes (30S) of mainland Australia.
No, rising air, heated air does not somehow just turn into a storm. If that were the case, deserts would be nothing but a daily storm. In fact, almost everywhere would be daily storms.
Yep. The post from Ed's Mountain sums it all up succintly.
Both these questions were already answered above by Ed's post, read carefully please:
My elementary understanding was temperature differential in warm weather (like quick air warming from 70 to 90, or cooler sea breezes in Florida) cause instability and thunderstorms.
Can someone please explain why the east coast gets unstable thunderstorms but the deserts do not, for the layman?
My elementary understanding was temperature differential in warm weather (like quick air warming from 70 to 90, or cooler sea breezes in Florida) cause instability and thunderstorms.
Can someone please explain why the east coast gets unstable thunderstorms but the deserts do not, for the layman?
The East Coast has more moisture and more mechanisms that create lifting than the Desert Southwest.
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