Photo by Michael Peterson
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rue to its desert image, Baja
California is one of the hottest and driest regions of the North American
continent. Between El Rosario and La Paz, rainfall is extremely low, averaging
between 2 inches and 4 inches a year, sometimes almost nothing for years at a
time. However, the northern and southern ends of the peninsula get significant
amounts of rain. Winter storms, often generated as far away as the Gulf of
Alaska, provide the areas west of the escarpments of the Sierra de Juárez and
Sierra San Pedro Mártir with up to 12 inches a year, enough to support sizable
forests at high elevations.
n the south end, tropical storms called chubascos can bring torrential rains and
heavy winds from mid-May to mid-November, peaking in August and September,
although abnormal water temperatures can cause exceptions. Most such storms
affect only the state of Baja California Sur, the southern half of the peninsula,
but they occasionally move up the Cortez to go ashore at San Felipe or into
Sonora. Although varying greatly from year to year, the Cape region averages 8
inches to 16 inches of rain a year, and isolated areas in the mountains can get
up to a distinctly nondesert 30 inches. For comparison, Seattle, famous for its
rain, gets an average of just over 38 inches.
he relatively cool waters of the California Current keep air
temperatures along Baja's Pacific coastal areas comfortable most of the year, but
temperatures soar along the western coast of the Cortez during the summer. The
area around Mexicali consistently experiences summer temperatures in the 104 to
108 degree range, occasionally getting up to 120 degrees, and on a windless
summer day, Santa Rosalía can seem as hot as a blast from the town's copper
smelters. The Cape region tends to have moderate temperatures all year. As in
desert areas elsewhere, day-to-night temperature variations are extreme, and it
is not uncommon for travelers to run the heaters of their vehicles early in the
morning and their air conditioners in the afternoon.
espite its normally warm and dry
weather, Baja occasionally provides a few surprises. Mountain areas can be very
cold in winter: while traveling in the Sierra San Pedro Mártir in 1905,
adventurer Arthur North was surprised to find that his canteen had frozen solid.
These mountains can accumulate up to 8 feet of snow, and the Ensenada rescue
squad has been called out a number of times to retrieve stranded hikers. Snow can
occasionally fall at lower elevations; in 1987, 5 feet fell at the 4,200-foot
level in the Sierra de Juárez.
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