It has been dry enough this fall that last weekend’s big winds caused dust storms. Dust storms are common here in periods of dry weather, but we have been generally wet since 1993. But seeing dust in the air got me thinking about the driest places on Earth.
According to Livescience.com, the third driest place is Al-Kufrah, Libya, in the northern Sahara, with an average annual rainfall of 0.03 inches per year. The second driest location is near Arica, Chili, also with an annual rainfall of 0.03 inches. It is estimated that some of the surrounding Atacama Desert has not had rainfall in 500 years. But the driest places on Earth are the so-called “Dry Valleys” of Antarctica where the average annual precipitation is zero. The Dry Valleys are so dry they are barren of snow even though it never thaws there. At times, katabatic winds of more than 100 mph blow down from nearby mountains, causing extreme evaporation.
