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Thank you for posting this. It irritates me to no end when people claim that. I used to live in a desert where the highs in summer averaged in the 45-47 C range. Lows out in the open desert were 27-29 C, but in the urban island where I lived, it almost never dipped below 32 C between June 15th and August 31st. Average lows were in the 33-35 C range because of all the concrete and asphalt.
Even in the winter, diurnal ranges were low. If the nights were chilly due to the arrival of a cold front, so were the days.
Diurnal ranges are influenced much more by altitude. The high deserts of the U.S, the high semi-arid cities in Iran (Saghez for example) etc. show impressive diurnal ranges. The best one I found was a 3 C night following a 31 C day in Saghez in June 2015. Amarillo, TX is not that high but shows a good diurnal range in late winter and early spring.
But here's something else that irritates me even more. A lot of people think you can get hypothermia in any body of water, if you stay in it long enough. If you swam in the Persian Gulf between mid-June and late September, you'd be more likely to get heat exhaustion. The human body is constantly producing heat so if you want to stay in water indefinitely and survive, it has to be a temperature where heat robbed = heat produced. The body cannot cool off by sweating as it does in air. This equilibrium water temperature is around 28-32 C, depending on one's metabolism and physique. Tropical oceans average 27 C, so hypothermia is possible although very unlikely. The Persian Gulf averages 35-37 C, making heat exhaustion inevitable as the body cannot cool off via sweating. There have been cases of people who drowned when swimming in the summer because of heat exhaustion. A water temperature equal to human body temperature (37 C) will give you heat exhaustion within hours.
I once got into an argument with someone over this because she got hypothermic when swimming off Florida in 27-degree water and assumed that this would be the case for any body of water anywhere in the world.
even western inland US deserts, don't get that cool at night if their afternoons are hot (above 90°F). Moab, Utah nights aren't that warm for summer but definitely not freezing cold:
Yeah, but I gotta say that these nights are still relatively cool.
I had places like Pinnacles National Park in mind, though.
Pinnacles is near a cold ocean which causes the large diurnal ranges. Doesn't qualify as desert though; it's a Mediterranean climate. Here's a better example of a desert with a large diurnal range; averages highs of 90 F/32 C in summer, yet it has recorded subfreezing temperatures every month of the year and even an extreme freeze in June.
Makes no sense at all. Why would ocean influence increase diurnal range?
Maybe that's not quite right, but anywhere that where the Pacific influence isn't blocked off by mountains in Central and Northern California has lows around the low 50s. The Central Valley on the other side of the coast range gets lows around 60°F.
Maybe that's not quite right, but anywhere that where the Pacific influence isn't blocked off by mountains in Central and Northern California has lows around the low 50s. The Central Valley on the other side of the coast range gets lows around 60°F.
It still wouldn't explain Pinnacles' lows. 45 F is well below the ocean temperature in summer.
Maybe that's not quite right, but anywhere that where the Pacific influence isn't blocked off by mountains in Central and Northern California has lows around the low 50s. The Central Valley on the other side of the coast range gets lows around 60°F.
Im not exactly sure but does that cool breeze from San Fransisco kind of do the same thing to Sacramento's nights in summer and keep them quite cool?
Makes no sense at all. Why would ocean influence increase diurnal range?
It does, but indirectly. If I understand right, the cold ocean holds down daytime temperatures in summer as well as discourage rainfall activity in areas to the lee of the mountains, while radiational cooling and dry air result in cold nights. Without the cold ocean, convectional rainfall would encourage plant growth and high humidity to maintain warm nights. But obviously, places that are RIGHT next to the ocean will have relatively warm nights as well.
It does, but indirectly. If I understand right, the cold ocean holds down daytime temperatures in summer as well as discourage rainfall activity in areas to the lee of the mountains, while radiational cooling and dry air result in cold nights. Without the cold ocean, convectional rainfall would encourage plant growth and high humidity to maintain warm nights. But obviously, places that are RIGHT next to the ocean will have relatively warm nights as well.
It doesn't seem to be doing a very good job of moderating Pinnacles' summer max temps. Obviously not much ocean influence there.
Are people pretty active at night there in the summers due to that?
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