Is the City of Orange in Southern California part of a "desert"?

[cherokeeprogressive]

I ask this in a thread of its own because there are peeps here who claim that it is because of its annual rainfall.

The book definition of "Desert" is a geographical area whose average rainfall is 10 inches or less.

The City of Orange California's average rainfall is nearly 14 inches ("13.8), which is more than 27.5% of said definition.

Now, there are those here who think their personal opinion should be accepted as fact, but let's look at what the FACT really is:

In the State of California, County of Orange, is a city whose name is "The City of Orange". The average annual rainfall in The City of Orange, in the County of Orange, in the State of California, is 13.8 inches per annum.

Based on the facts at hand, The City of Orange, California, is NOT desert, nor is it PART of a desert.

Agreed?

[Abq_Sarah]

1. It is classified

As a semi-arid region. It was never meant to support lawns.

[cherokeeprogressive]

5. What it was "meant" to be is something you or I am loathe to say.

What it IS, is a place whoses average rainfall is 27%+ of what is generally described as "desert".

This whole argument arose from a disagreement between a homeowner and the stupid laws of a CITY.

The people who live in the house the story was generated by have cut their water consumption by 81%. They are no longer attempting to support a lawn.

The area in question cannot be considered DESERT because of its annual rainfall.

[FreakinDJ]

2. LA basin only has enough water for 200,000 people

all the rest must be imported

[cabluedem]

7. Most of the water comes from Norcal. nt

[FreakinDJ]

14. Yes - we are glad to have water restrictions here while our water goes south

[ProgressiveProfessor]

22. And from the destruction of the Owens Valley as well

[MGB67]

16. Just ask the folks who used to have ranches

in the Owens Valley (east of the Sierra Navadas and north of LA) how they fee about the LA city limits and municipal water district extending that far from LA. That water taken in the early 1900s gave rise to the great southern California land boom.

[kristopher]

3. Get set down in a remote area with an average rainfal of 13.8 inches

with no supplies and let us know your opinion after 3 days.

[petronius]

4. That old 10" thing is a pretty lame definition of desert, but no - Orange

would not count as a desert under any common climatological or ecological definition. (Although it may just sneak into the semi-arid/steppe category, depending on what classification scheme you prefer and what the annual temperature is.)

(Of course, you're kind of a tool for starting this call-out thread... :P)

[upi402]

6. AKA

nerd rage

rawr

[petronius]

13. LOL! That's funny...

:)

[anonymous171]

8. Have you ever been there? It's a fucking desert.

Science be damned.

[cherokeeprogressive]

10. LOL. Yeah, I've been there. I grew up in there. n/t

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

20. home sweet home, and not a desert.

[LeftyMom]

9. Did this really need a separate thread?

[XemaSab]

11. It's certainly arid down there

and in most years it probably gets under 10". Of course, virtually all the rain falls in the winter, so the summers are very dry.

In the Koppen system, it's in zone B, where potential evapotranspiration exceeds precipitation.

It's then classified as a steppe climate (as opposed to a desert climate) because the precipitation is more than half of the cutoff amount for arid climate designation.

After that, it's classified as a warmer arid climate, because the coldest month averages above freezing.

Finally, it's classified as receiving precipitation in the winter.

So the full designation would be Bshw.

From where I'm sitting, it's a desert, for all intents and purposes.

[appal_jack]

12. science FTW!

Nicely stated Xemasab.

:toast:

-app

[Codeine]

29. I think we can call that

the final word on the subject. This thread has been won.

[rucky]

15. More of a wasteland than a desert, then.

[blogslut]

17. Doesn't matter

Grass lawns are a waste of water regardless. I applaud that couple for doing the right thing.

[raouldukelives]

18. In no way a desert

For at least 6 years.

[cabluedem]

25. The upper valleys were floodlands. Most of the lower half very arid at the least. nt

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

19. Most of Orange County is considered to have a Mediterranean climate

as opposed to an arid or semi-arid climate,

[gleaner]

21. Most of Southern California started as a desert....

It was irrigated into a habitable place for people to live. Bush cut a lot of the water off that we used to get from the Colorado river, I suspect out of spite.

I don't think you can define an ecology by one narrow fact, and why would you want to?

I don't understand your seeming upset over this. Are you displacing, or just sitting in the Crosspatch in general?

Life is a bitch. With everything else that is going on, what does it matter if one particular city meets a specific definition.:shrug:

[ProgressiveProfessor]

23. Think it was more of a steppe than a true desert

[cabluedem]

24. Aren't steppes at higher altitudes? nt

[gleaner]

30. I live in ...

L.A. which was a desert. I think as the post downstream points out that steppes are at higher altitude. The Sahara is a desert. And it goes through cycles of rainfall which cause flooding. That all by itself is not proof for the hot dry pudding.

I think you have to take into consideration the type of flora and fauna which will survive in the area, the amount of vegetation which can survive without artificially added moisture and a whole variety of other things.

In the part of LA where I live, the temperatures can be in the 90s in December, but not always and in the summer they are typically over 100 and up to 115. Those are common temperatures. Now that they charge so much for water that you can barely flush your toilets we are in a sea of dying vegetation which cannot maintain life here. The cacti are doing great, some succulents Large deep rooted plants and trees, but it is not temperate here by any means. That was a man made state.

Please bear in mind that I am not an expert on the subject. I just live here and try to stay out of the heat. You will sunburn badly if you don't within 9 minutes of exposure. If you have material that you think is informative and will stretch my tired brain, I would welcome a link.;)

[CreekDog]

26. Tucson gets 11 inches per year, wanna argue it's not a desert?

evapotranspiration - precipitation is a better measure but none is perfect.

needless to say, the city of Orange is a place without rain for 6+ months per year and which needs to import most of its water from the Colorado River and/or Northern California.

[SmileyRose]

27. I live in the wet east and still think burning up time and money on grass is ignorant.

I do because it's expected to maintain the value of my home, but I use as much acreage for food as possible.

[Igel]

28. Your methodology is wrong.

You're arguing that the word "desert" is not just part of a jargon but can *only* be part of that jargon so that its more common and less rigorous use and definition are inappropriate.

It happens among specialists, but usually either when they're being argumentative and want to shut down conversation and declare victory or when they're new to the field and are zealots. Most of them recognize when a word is being used in a way that's particular to their jargon and when it's not. Sometimes, to make life easier for themselves, they'll define the word mid-conversation as they and their community use it.

Since most people have but a few terms for terrain most of them cover more territory, so to speak, than specialist terms.

As a different example: Yesterday I was looking up something and ran across the term "brash ice" while looking up "polynya". I didn't have a word for what "brash ice" describes. Then I ran into "frazil ice," "grease ice," "young ice," "fixed ice," and a host of other words for the surface of a body of water in different states between completely liquid and covered with 10' of ice. They would have come in handy when I was a teenager, or a few years back when I lived in Rochester. Still, I'm unlikely to use them in conversation or insist that either non-specialists use them "properly" or simply not talk about ice. Esp. when that kind of approach doesn't alter reality but just scores style points in a debate that I'm otherwise losing on the substance of a matter.

[Initech]

31. I live in Orange and it isn't a desert.

[KamaAina]

32. Agreed.

However, the couple should still be allowed to xeriscape. Indeed, everyone in southern and central CA, not to mention NV, AZ, etc., should be xeriscaping.

[yawnmaster]

33. Its Chaparral, which does overlap desert if you just look at rainfall...

a chaparral can have as little as 8 inches of rainfall a year but can go up to around 40 inches/year.
Orange county is near the lower end. It is close to being a desert and in fact in some years the annual rainfall would
put it into a desert biome classification if that rainfall were maintained.

It is definitely an arid region with rainfall at the lower end of the scale.