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Effect of a rain shadow The Tibetan Plateau (center), perhaps the best example of a rain shadow. Rainfalls from the southern South Asian monsoon do not make it far past the Himalayas (seen by the snow line at the bottom), leading to an arid climate on the leeward (north) side of the mountain range and the desertification of the Tarim Basin (top).
Depending on the vertical and horizontal magnitude of a mountain range, it has the potential to have strong effects on global and regional climate patterns and processes including: deflection of atmospheric circulation, creation of orographic lift, altering monsoon circulation, and causing the rain shadow effect. Simple illustration of the rain ...
A rain shadow is a dry area on the leeward side of a mountainous area (away from the wind). The mountains block the passage of rain-producing weather systems and cast a "shadow" of dryness behind them. Wind and moist air are drawn by the prevailing winds towards the top of the mountains, condensing and precipitating before it crosses the top.
The Ecology of the North Cascades is heavily influenced by the high elevation and rain shadow effects of the mountain range. The North Cascades is a section of the Cascade Range from the South Fork of the Snoqualmie River in Washington, United States, to the confluence of the Thompson and Fraser Rivers in British Columbia, Canada, where the range is officially called the Cascade Mountains but ...
As the air descends the lee side of the mountain, it warms and dries, creating a rain shadow. On the lee side of the mountains, sometimes as little as 15 miles (25 km) away from high precipitation zones, annual precipitation can be as low as 8 inches (200 mm) per year. [3] Areas where this effect is observed include:
The mountains themselves in some places further enhanced the rainfall because they contribute to the lift that produces more rain in thunderstorms, Easterling said. “It was at least 30 hours of ...
By the time it reaches the east side of the mountains, little moisture is left to bring to the desert. The rain shadow effect is more pronounced closer to the Sierra Nevada, with yearly precipitation in the Great Basin desert averaging 9 inches (230 mm) in the west and 12 inches (300 mm) inches in the east. [18]
A warming world is transforming some major snowfalls into extreme rain over mountains instead, somehow worsening both dangerous flooding like the type that devastated Pakistan last year as well as ...