Vegetation of the Mid Hills

Eastern Mojave Vegetation	The Vegetation of Lobo Point and North Wild Horse Mesa, Mojave National Preserve, San Bernardino County, California. (Continued)
	Tom Schweich

Topics in this Article: Introduction Geography Geology Climate Methods Results Discussion Summary Literature Cited	Portions of this paper were originally presented at the 1995 Desert Research Sympoiums at the San Bernardino County Museum. My work in this area is ongoing and this paper has been updated as new information became available.
Literature Cited: - Walter, H, 1963. Description of climate diagrams after Walter (1963).	Climate Walter (1963) suggested a climatic diagram to relate precipitation to temperature as a surrogate for water balance, as shown at left.
Other articles: • Eastern Mojave Climate: Climate; Locations: Mitchell Caverns. Mountain Pass.	I prepared a climatic diagram for Mitchell Caverns and Mountain Pass, using the diagram of Walter (1963) as a guide and the methods described in my page on the "Climate of the Eastern Mojave Desert."
Locations: Mitchell Caverns. Climate diagram for Mitchell Caverns, California	The climate diagram for Mitchell Caverns is shown at left. The temperature curve follows a nice sinusoidal curve, with a minimum in January and maximum in July, although the temperature seems to build a little more slowly in the Spring, and fall off more rapidly in the Fall than a simple sinusoidal curve would indicate.
Literature Cited: - Zar, Jerrold H, 1996. Locations: Mitchell Caverns.	The distribution of rainfall can be characterized as bi-modal. That is, there is a Winter peak of precipitation, which occurs in February, and a Summer peak, which occurs on August. Zar (1966) notes that it is interesting to report the number of modes detected in a population, if there are more than one, because a bi-modal distribution may indicate a combination of two distributions with different modes. The Total Quality Management press takes the concept a little farther, stating that a bi-modal distribution often indicates that two processes are being measured by one variable. And that is probably what is happening here; the weather process that beings Winter precipitation is different than the process that brings Summer precipitation, and the two processes are being measured by one variable, precipitation at Mitchell Caverns.
Locations: Mountain Pass. Climate diagram for Mountain Pass	The climate diagram for Mountain Pass, shown at left, shows that the climate there is very similar to Mitchell Caverns, except slightly colder winters.
	Overall, the climate diagrams for the eastern Mojave show a humid period from November through March, and an arid period from April through October. The favorable growing season, defined by absence of frost, is limited to June through September. May, the best month for flowering displays, may have frost and is arid. The most striking feature of the diagram is the summer precipitation peak. August is the wettest month in the eastern Mojave. However, the climate in August is still classified as arid.
Literature Cited: - West, N. E., K. H. Rea, and R. J. Tausch, 1975. Locations: Mitchell Caverns. Mountain Pass. Sedona.	West, Rea and Tausch (1975) published climatic diagrams for 16 stations where pinyon-juniper woodlands are located, ranging from California to Texas, and north to Idaho. Visually, the diagram for Sedona, Arizona is the most similar to the eastern Mojave stations. However, the climatic diagrams for Mitchell Caverns and Mountain Pass are more similar to each other than they are to any of West, et al's (1975) diagrams.
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If you have a question or a comment you may write to me at: tomas@schweich.com I sometimes post interesting questions in my FAQ, but I never disclose your full name or address.	[Home Page] [Site Map] Date and time this article was prepared: 11/3/2024 5:32:36 PM

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