Arizona Real Estate Notebook

The Sonoran desert in Arizona, USA and Sonora, Mexico is the only desert in the world with two rainy seasons.

All other deserts have one rainy season. Their rainy season is in either the winter or the summer.

For example, our neighbor to the east, the Chihuahuan desert, in Texas and Chihuahua, Mexico has a summer rainy season with violent downpours coming out of the Gulf of Mexico.

Our neighbor to the west, the Mojave desert, in California has a winter rainy season with gentle rains coming off of the Pacific.

The Sonoran desert gets some rain from both of those storm systems. That is why we are unique.

The Sonoran desert, although it has only about 7 inches of rain, has very “lush” vegetation for a desert with only 7 inches of rain because of the split rainy seasons.

A normal desert with only one rainy season and only 7 inches of rain would have far less vegetation because of the dry season that might be 8 or 9 months long. Few plants can survive such a long dry season.

In the Sonoran desert, however, the dry seasons are half that long so many more plants can survive until the next rainy season even though we only have 7 inches of rain.

Any other desert in the world with only 7 inches of rain would look very bleak indeed to us Arizonans.

Okay, as you might be able to notice, I have a degree in agriculture with a special interest in desert agriculture.