Golden State Weather Climate divisionsSoutheast Desert Basins

Southeast Desert Basins

Mojave and Colorado deserts; the only monsoon division.

NCEI DIVISION7CALIFORNIA

Climate divisions are broad reporting areas. Golden State Weather's eighteen terrain regions nest inside them imperfectly but usefully: the division supplies the statewide frame, while the region explains which range, gap, basin or coastline makes one station differ from the next.

Eastern Sierra & Owens ValleyA deep valley in the deepest rain shadow in North America.BEYOND THE CREST3 PLACES Mojave DesertThe high desert, and the lowest, hottest point in the hemisphere inside it.DESERTS4 PLACES Colorado Desert & Salton TroughBelow sea level, below three inches of rain, and the one part of California with a real monsoon.DESERTS3 PLACES

California map highlighting Southeast Desert Basins.

3 terrain regions, 10 stations. Atlas regions assigned to CA-7.

The atlas station sample

PRONOT AN AREAL AVERAGE

These figures summarize the named NOAA stations attached to this site's places inside the division. They are useful for comparing its internal spread, but they are not NCEI's official gridded or area-weighted divisional series. Mountains and cities are intentionally over-represented because this is a terrain atlas.

10Atlas stations

2.2–10.2″Annual precipitation

64.2–104.2°FJuly mean

-190–6,463ftStation elevation

Atlas station sample; not an official area-weighted divisional series.
Place	Region	Elev ft	Jan mean	Jul mean	Annual precip	Snow	Nov–Apr share
Bridgeport	Eastern Sierra & Owens Valley	6,463	26.8°	64.2°	10.2″	31.9″	71%
Bishop	Eastern Sierra & Owens Valley	4,150	39.9°	78.2°	4.8″	—	78%
Lone Pine	Eastern Sierra & Owens Valley	3,727	43.9°	84.7°	5.4″	—	84%
Furnace Creek	Mojave Desert	-190	54.9°	104.2°	2.2″	—	73%
Barstow	Mojave Desert	2,175	47.1°	86.9°	5.0″	0.3″	77%
Needles	Mojave Desert	495	56.2°	98.5°	4.3″	—	69%
Lancaster	Mojave Desert	2,350	45.0°	82.4°	6.8″	—	89%
Palm Springs	Colorado Desert & Salton Trough	479	59.0°	94.0°	4.6″	—	82%
Blythe	Colorado Desert & Salton Trough	268	54.8°	93.9°	3.6″	—	67%
El Centro	Colorado Desert & Salton Trough	-39	57.2°	92.5°	2.5″	—	68%

The measured record for this division

NOAA computes an official area-weighted monthly series for every climate division, back to 1895. Our companion site carries all of it — the warming rate, the wettest and driest water years, the drought ledger and the ENSO correlation — on Golden State Climate. Free, ungated, and recomputed from NCEI's published tables.