Is Lubbock, Texas Actually A Desert?
This question will probably be Googled thousands of times over the next few days.
I guess I have to spell out why this is a question at all. It's a sports thing. Some guy from TCU claimed Lubbock was "the desert." If you'd like to get more in-depth on that topic and why cactus emojis and #lubbock are trending on Twitter, then it's best for my friend Rob Breaux to explain it all to you.
I just don't think it's that ridiculous of an assumption that Lubbock is "the desert." Let's not pretend that we're not surrounded by dirt with little to no water and it was 108 degrees yesterday. That REALLY sounds like the desert to me.
I'm certain I could find you some real science-y guys to answer this question definitively, but this one from answers.com pretty much covers it:
No, Lubbock's climate is classified as "semi-arid." A desert is defined as an area that receives 10 inches or less of precipitation each year, and Lubbock receives an average of 18 inches of rain and 10 inches of snow each year.
Okay, that really doesn't cover it completely, because Lubbock in general gets 20 inches of rain annually and about 7.1 inches of snow, but ya know, close enough. I suppose I could keep drilling down, but the whole "less than 10 inches of rain" to be a desert means that we aren't a desert.
So is this TCU bozo off base? Well, let's just say we could do a little better when it comes to PR. While we have desert-looking areas, I Googled "pictures of Lubbock, Texas" and while the city's landscape looks a little bleak, it's obvious we're not a desert.
One last item: if this brain-damaged frog meant "desert" as in a "cultural desert," then we may have to do a bit more research to prove him wrong.