Скачать или смотреть What is the Rain Shadow Effect?

Why do we often have more rain and plants on the western side of a mountain range than the eastern side?
Well, what happens is an air parcel that's very warm and compact starts to rise up the windward side of the mountain.
And as it does, it expands because there's
less air pressure as you go higher up.
And as it expands, those air particles are going to be bumping into each other less, so it's going to get colder.
As it gets colder, it can't hold as much water vapor, so clouds are going to condense and you're going to get some rainfall, and that's going to grow a bunch of trees.
Now, on the leeward side of the mountain, the exact opposite is going to happen.
Our expanded air parcel is going to start to compact.
As air pressure increases, those air particles are going to bounce into each other a lot more.
It's going to get warmer and it's going to be dry because all of the rain has already been squeezed out.
So that basically explains why on the windward side of mountains, you often have a lot of trees, and on the leeward side, you often have a desert.


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