The desert is the hottest biome on earth. However, the desert is also a land of extremes. It can be over 100 degrees Fahrenheit during the day but below 32 degrees at night. This change is because deserts are bare. There is little protection to keep them from heating up in the sun and cooling off when the sun disappears at night.

The amount of rainfall also varies. Though there is little rain in a desert, and when it does rain, it pours. Violent rainstorms can cause flash floods in the desert. After a storm, the desert may not see any rain for weeks or months.
The desert climate is very dry and hot mostly because the biomes are located by the equator. The desert gets less than twenty-five centimeters per year of rain. The evaporation exceeds the rainfall that's why it is very dry. The desert has hot days and cold nights. There is extreme heat and dryness. The rising air cools and can hold less moisture and falling air warms absorbing the moisture.

The desert climate is very hot and dry. Not many plants and animals can survive, but the ones that do are adapted to the desert climate. As if the heat were not enough, at night it cools down to very cold temperatures. Deserts are usually located in areas near the equator. Most are just barren land with sand that stretches for miles. The desert climate controls for this region are latitude because they are positioned near the equator. Another control is land & water because land heats up and cools down much faster than water making the climate more extreme.

There is a shortage of precipitation in the desert receiving less than 25 centimeters a year, receiving the least rain in the spring & summer. Although August is one of the months that receives the most rain with up to 1.3 centimeters of rain. The months of December to March is the time period when the desert receives the most precipitation. In May and June it does not receive any precipitation at all.

The temperatures for the desert fluctuate from day to night. The temperatures get so hot that they sometimes cause you to hallucinate. During winter the temperatures are lower than usual, in spring and summer it gets hotter, and in the fall it cools down a bit. The temperature controls are heating of the land because land heats faster than water, and geographic location because they are usually located by the equator.

In the desert you will find many plants. Those plants have adapted to the desert by holding in a lot of water for a long time. The most common desert plant is the cactus. Most people think of this plant when they think of the desert. There are other types of plants, such as peyote. It is a small plant that is really low to the ground. Indians used to smoke peyote to get a lot of ideas. Peyote is found in the Chihuahuan desert in North America. Another kind of plant is the fishhook cactus. It is really prickly and the needles are shaped just like the name, fishhook. Kind of clever, eh? It is found in the Sonoran desert. The hedgehog cactus is small and has really sharp needles. It doesn't have a lot of details, it is just a little prickly thing. I wouldn't step on it with no shoes on though. It is found in the great basin.