> Hmmm, I still don't buy it. I assumed a
> Mediterranean rainfall pattern (>90% rainfall
> in winter) but deserts exist with or without
> this rainfall pattern.
Don't forget, this is 100%, not 90%+. There is a difference between little rain and none at all.
> Seasonality of rainfall makes no difference,
> deserts are a balance between precipitation
> and evapotranspiration.
Wow. Those are some big words. In any case, the Wastes are not balanced. From precipitation, you have to assume that most areas of the waste experience 90% run-off, so really get 4 inches of useful precipitation. (This may be a huge source of difference compared to the real world. The Serpents that form in the run-off are jealous -- they do not soak into the gground.) This will be less true of the greater grasslands, where the ground can soak up some of the rain. The equivalent there might be 8-12 inches of rain. The evaporation component of evapotranspiration pulls most of that water back out of the ground within the first couple weeks of summer, which makes them tolerable but humid. The transpiration component of evapotranspiration is not significant outside of the grasslands, which are a small portion of the area of the wastes. The rocky areas have no significant plan life; the scrub is mainly bushes that go dormant in summer. Most of the humidity of evapotranspiration is the blown out of the Wastes entirely by the high pressure system known as the Storm Bull Winds, which blow outwards from the wastes (in two directions at once) starting in early summer.
> Flashfloods don't explain this reasonably either.
> 2" of rain in Death Valley came very close to
> destroying much of the developments at Furnace
> Creek Visitors Center this past July. 44" of
> rain, first of all would not form flashfloods
> the entire season,
Right. It is one long flood. It just comes on sudddenly.
> and secondly if we assume flashfloods, nobody
> would have built a lasting city at the
> site of Robcradle.
The banks of the Zola Fel are pretty steep there. Also, I think it is mainly above the confluence of the local streams, is it not?
> Even 44cm (17") is too much. Mojave Desert
> averages 10" and is considered a wet desert.
I think 44 inches is OK. (If I had been writing it, I'd have said less, but I can live with what it says.) All of it falls within a few weeks during the winter. Think about how unpleasantly useless it would be to get 2 inches of rain every day for three weeks, then nothing for the rest of the year. That would not be uncommon as I see it. Remember that many years receive no rain at all. (None, zero, zilch.) This really prevents a lot of ground cover from growing, which means more run-off, so more erosion, so more run-off, etc.
Also, recall that the wastes are a desert in the ecological sense, but the word "desert" does not evoke the right imagery. The wastes are not like the Sahara. The wastes are a mix of grasslands like the American great plains or the Russian steppe, broad areas of rocky waste like the deserts in New Mexico, but most of all, great stretches of unpleasant scrub where little but thorn bushes grow. Without grass or other decent vegetation, most of the water runs right off into Dead Bottom, never to be seen again.
> But no matter, because best of all it seems that
> there is no official number and nobody knows for
> sure. Thus, I'll stick with my assumed
> 10" of rain, less in Prax and the Wastes.
> 30" on the southern slope of the Rockwoods,
> mostly as snowpack, which then feeds the
> tributaries of the Zola Fel and waters the
> valley.
IIRC, River of Cradles and Drastic Prax (both OOP) have rainfall numbers, but I think they are consistent with what you cited originally.
> The only problem that remains is the
> large annual floods that must occur to have
> created the fertile overbank soils. *shrug*
Fertile? By what standard? Pavis County is only fertile by comparison to the wastes. Sartarites would consider it scratching out one of the the toughest livings ever. They only go there to escape death and worse.
Alison Place:
> Now, the corollary to this is that sensible
> farmers now in the ZF valley
Where in the Zola Fel valley would one find "sensible" farmers? Sensible farmers would leave as soon as possible. ;-)
> will be making serious collective efforts to
> corral that rain into cisterns and ponds
> for irrigation to get their crops and
> livestock through Fire Season.
Also, that way, they can grow _extra_ mosquitoes. And don't forget that bad or chaotic spirits (the arsenic spirit, etc.) may leach from the rocks into their ponds.
> Fortunately for the settlers, nomads don't
> organise worth a damn.
That's not what the ground men say in 1625.
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