How are deserts formed? Can it snow in the desert?

Desert refers to a place where the ground is completely covered by sand, where there is drought and water shortage, and where there are few plants. It is a barren area where the ground is completely covered by sand, where there are very few plants, little rain, and dry air. So how are deserts formed? Does it rain or snow in deserts? Are you also curious? The following is a detailed sharing of relevant knowledge.

Contents of this article

1. How are deserts formed?

2. Does it snow in the desert?

3. Does it rain in the desert?

How are deserts formed?

Traditional ideas hold that deserts are the product of the arid climate on Earth. The Sahara Desert in North Africa, the Victoria Desert in Australia, the Thar Desert in South Asia, and the Rukahali Desert in the Apapa Peninsula are all concentrated between 15° and 35° north and south of the equator. This is because the rotation of the Earth has caused these areas to be shrouded in the sinking air currents of atmospheric circulation for a long time. The sinking of air currents has destroyed the rain-forming process, forming an arid climate and creating vast deserts. However, this theory cannot explain the causes of all deserts. For example, the Thar Desert has a humid sky and when the southwest monsoon comes, the water content in the air there is almost comparable to that of a tropical rainforest, but its ground is covered with sand. American researchers believe that dust is the main cause of desert formation. But where does the large amount of dust come from? Some scholars pointed out that the dust in the Thar Desert was originally caused by humans, and later the desert increased its density. So some people have proposed that humans are the real culprits who destroy the ecological environment and create deserts.

Does it snow in the desert?

Desert refers to an area where the ground is completely covered by sand, it is dry and water-scarce, and there are few plants. It is a barren area where the ground is completely covered by sand, there are very few plants, little rain, and dry air. The chance of snow is very small. Land desertification mainly occurs in arid and semi-arid areas. The key factor in the formation of deserts is climate. However, on the edge of the desert, the original vegetation may be grassland, which has been desertified due to human factors. The conditions for the formation of snow are that there is a chance of snowfall in places with a climate zone of mid-latitude to high latitudes (that is, approximately south of the Tropic of Capricorn/north of the Tropic of Cancer). If there are some mid-mountains or plateaus with terrain above 2,000 meters above sea level in low-latitude areas, there is also the same chance.

Does it rain in the desert?

It also rains in the desert. In desert areas, the climate is dry and rainfall is scarce, with annual precipitation below 250 mm. In some desert areas, annual precipitation is even less than 10 mm (such as the Taklimakan Desert in Xinjiang, China), but there are occasional sudden heavy rains. The evaporation in desert areas is very large, far exceeding the local precipitation; the humidity of the air is low, and the relative humidity can be as low as 5%. It occasionally rains in the desert, and it is often a storm. The Sahara Desert once had a record of 44 mm of precipitation in 3 hours. At this time, the normally dry river channels will quickly fill with water and are prone to flooding. Although it rarely rains inside the desert, the desert is often filled with water from rivers flowing out of nearby mountains. These rivers usually carry a lot of soil and dry up after flowing in the desert for a day or two. There are only a few large rivers in the world that flow through the desert.