Lower Colorado River Valley - The LCRV, A Desert Region

The LCRV, A Desert Region

Some of the highest desert temperatures-(of North America) are recorded in the LCRV, rivaling Death Valley; specifically Bullhead City, Laughlin, Needles, Yuma, or the southeast deserts of California, west of the Colorado River. The LCRV is defined by three deserts. The Mojave Desert is in southeast California, southern Nevada, and northwest Arizona. To the south is the Sonoran Desert on both sides of the Colorado River. However an ecozone delineation occurs in the transition from Arizona to southeast California; consequently the western side of the Colorado River is defined as the western Sonoran Desert and given the name Colorado Desert; the ecozone of this western Sonoran Desert extends south into the northwest region of Sonora, Mexico and the extreme northeast of northern Baja California, Mexico.

The Lower Colorado River Valley is located in the north, and northwestern Sonoran Desert; the Sonoran Desert region proper extends from areas west of the river, and then southeastwards to southeast Arizona, south to the tip of Baja California Sur, eastwards of the Baja Peninsula cordillera, and south through Sonora state, Mexico to the northern border of neighboring Sinaloa.

The LCRV extends about 350 miles (563 km) from Hoover Dam to the Colorado River Delta. The Sonoran Desert itself is more than twice as extensive north-to-south, and about 450 miles (724 km) in width. Two species, Desert Ironwood-(Olneya tesota) and the Lesser Long-nosed Bat, have geographic ranges identical to the Sonoran Desert, and are indicator species of the Sonoran Desert region. The spring flowering of Ironwood, and the bat species migration arrivals also become indicators of annual or multi-year climate trends for regions of the Sonoran Desert.