Where did the change begin?
Labs / Geography
Rain Shadow Effect
Ocean wind carries damp air toward a mountain. As it climbs the windward slope it cools, the moisture condenses into cloud and rain, and the air that finally pours down the far side is warm and bone-dry. Drag the peak up and down, or turn the moisture and wind dials, to see a lush green slope and a desert form on opposite sides of the same ridge.
Labs / Geography / Rain Shadow Effect
Rain Shadow Effect
Ocean wind carries damp air toward a mountain. As it climbs the windward slope it cools, the moisture condenses into cloud and rain, and the air that finally pours down the far side is warm and bone-dry. Drag the peak up and down, or turn the moisture and wind dials, to see a lush green slope and a desert form on opposite sides of the same ridge.
Why it matters
Why explore this?
Geography explains how places, people, and Earth systems affect one another. This model lets you change one factor and watch its effects spread across space.
Explore
Try the model
Windward —Leeward —Cloud base —Lee warming —Biome —
Investigate
Questions to test
Predict first, try it in the model, then use what you observe to answer.
What to try
- Raise the mountain higher and higher. Does the leeward side get warmer or cooler as the peak climbs?
- Where does the cloud first appear when the incoming air is very moist versus quite dry?
- Can you find a mountain low enough that no rain falls at all? What happens to both slopes then?
- Why is the air rushing down the leeward side warmer than the air that arrived over the ocean?
- Turn the wind up. Does faster wind change how much rain the windward slope collects?
Explain
Make sense of what happened
Connect the pattern to place: identify where the change begins, where its effects appear, and which process links those locations.
Check
Before you leave
What spatial pattern appeared?
Which process connects the cause and effect?
If you can answer all three using evidence from the model, you understand the main idea. If not, return to Explore and change one setting at a time.