Eastern WA is not a desert because evapotranspiration is too low, despite the low precipitation. It is a transition desert between the hot Sonoran Desert to the south, and the cold Great Basin Desert to the north. The Great Basin Desert Great Basin National Park is located in the Great Basin Desert, one of the four deserts of the United States. The Great Basin is a desert, averaging less than 10 inches of rain a year. The Great Basin Desert is the only "cold" desert in the country, where most precipitation falls in the form of snow. The state of Nevada is a land of extremes, both in geography and climate, largely because of its location smack in the middle of the Great Basin, where a desert climate reigns supreme. The 4 deserts of North America can be demarcated by climate. Location is due to global atmospheric patterns Form due to persistent high atmospheric pressure. It includes much of the South Snake Range, a superb example of a metamorphic core complex. Middle Latitude Desert. The park is most commonly entered by way of Nevada State Route 488, which is connected to U.S. Despite these dry conditions there are over 800 different plant species in the park and South Snake Range, of these 13 are considered sensitive species. Yes, the Great Basin is obviously a desert. The Mohave, Chihuahan, and Sonoran deserts are typical "hot" deserts. General Climate. The Great Basin Desert exists because it is a rain shadow desert. Deserts that experience this climate are drier than those that lie within the hot desert climate. It is a cold desert, and because of its high elevation, it receives most of its moisture in winter snows. The Great Salt Lake Desert is part of the much larger Great Basin Desert, which encompasses portions of Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, Utah and small slivers of Arizona and California. The valleys are dominated by sagebrush and shadescale. This contrasts with a mean annual temperature of 20 C (68 F) for the 3 warm deserts. a. For precipitation, normal annual accumulations are shown in light green. Routes 6 and 50 by Nevada State Route 487 via the small town of Baker, the closest settlement.. The Great Basin Desert is defined by plant and animal communities. A desert has a drier climate than a ____ Subtropical Desert. Great Basin National Park is an American national park located in White Pine County in east-central Nevada, near the Utah border, established in 1986. Extreme high and low temperature records for a day of the year are indicated by the blue and red bars. Mojave Desert Climate Dry Tropical Climate (BW). Great Basin is a distinctly cold desert, with monthly mean temperatures below zero from Dec thru Feb, and a mean annual temp of 9 C (48 F). Great Basin National Park comprises 120 square miles (77,100 acres) in an isolated area of the north-central Great Basin Desert. Same reason the South Pole isn't a desert climate, but a ice cap climate. 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