Our desert front yard, the TMAD, topped the humidity and the hottest temp of the Death Valley furnace creek today.
First up, what makes the Mojave so hot? Before this, we have to understand the rain shadow effect. Picture a mountain near the Sierra Nevada. On one side of a mountain the air is wet and cold, but on the other side is hot and dry. This occurs simply because the dry part of the mountain is forced to become barren because over the mountains, the cold air dries out. So whenever you go to Palm Springs (a well-known area effected by rain shadow) thank the shivering Sierra Nevada air for making you sweat.
The TMAD has reached a record high of 129F on Wednesday, October 4, 2023, and a record low humidity of 16%. No, I am not joking. To give you background., the record temperature in Death Valley is quite high, at 134F In contrast, Death Valley on that same day reached 109F with 32% humidity. Why could our desert be hotter?
Obviously, mount Davidson is way to small to foster a rain shadow, being almost 1-5% as tall as the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The reason why is because greenhouses plastic walls traps the sun's heat. This means the temperature can be anywhere from 5-20F higher than the outside temperature .
The humidity is lower only because the greenhouse plants never gets watered. Even on foggy moist days, the sand inside remains dry, and the humidity is still at 20%.
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