Rain shadow in the context of Moisture

Nevada (/nəˈvædə/ nə-VAD-ə; Spanish: [neˈβaða] ) is a landlocked state in the Western United States. It is also sometimes placed in the Mountain West and Southwestern United States. It borders Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the seventh-most extensive, the 32nd-most populous, and the ninth-least densely populated U.S. state. Nearly three-quarters of Nevada's population live in Clark County, which contains the Las Vegas–Paradise metropolitan area, including three of the state's four largest incorporated cities. Nevada's capital is Carson City. Las Vegas is the largest city in the state. Nevada is the westernmost U.S. state without coastline and also the westernmost landlocked first-level country subdivison in the Americas.

Nevada is officially known as the "Silver State" because of the importance of silver to its history and economy. It is also known as the "Battle Born State" because it achieved statehood during the Civil War (the words "Battle Born" also appear on its state flag); due to the presidency of Abraham Lincoln, the Union benefited immensely from the support of newly awarded statehood by the infusion of the monetary support of nearly $400 million in silver ore generated at the time by the Comstock Lode. It is also known as the "Sagebrush State", for the native plant of the same name; and as the "Sage-hen State". The state's name means "snowy" in Spanish, referring to Nevada's extensive number of mountain ranges capped with snow in winter, which help make Nevada among the highest US states by mean altitude. These include the Carson Range portion of the Sierra Nevada (and about 1/3 of Lake Tahoe by surface area), as well as the Toiyabe Range, Ruby Mountains, and Spring Mountains (which exemplify the sky islands of the Great Basin montane forests), in western, central, northeastern, and southern Nevada, respectively. Nevada is the driest U.S. state, both lying in the rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada and receiving among the highest solar irradiance of any U.S. state, and is thus largely desert and semi-arid. Nevada comprises the majority of the Great Basin, as well as a large portion of the Mojave Desert. In 2020, 80.1% of the state's land was managed by various jurisdictions of the U.S. federal government, both civilian and military.

The Judaean Desert or Judean Desert (Hebrew: מִדְבַּר יְהוּדָה, romanized: Midbar Yehuda, Arabic: برية الخليل, romanized: Bariyat al-Khalil) is a desert in the West Bank and Israel that stretches east of the ridge of the Judaean Mountains and in their rain shadow, so east of Jerusalem, and descends to the Dead Sea.

The Judaean Desert has historically functioned as a place of refuge for rebels and displaced populations. According to the Hebrew Bible, David took shelter there while fleeing from King Saul. The Hasmonean rulers of Judaea, and their successor, Herod the Great, built several monumental fortresses in the region, including Herodium, Hyrcania, and Masada. In the period of the Jewish–Roman Wars, the desert became a key theater of conflict, with Roman forces besieging major strongholds. Caves in the area, such as the Cave of Letters and the Cave of Horrors, later served as hiding places for Jewish refugees, preserving personal documents, religious texts, skeletons, weapons, clothing, and household items—thanks to the region's arid climate. The desert also attracted religious sects, including the classical-era Jewish ascetics of Qumran (likely Essenes) and Byzantine-era Christian monks who practiced spiritual isolation in local lavras.

Kahoʻolawe is the smallest of the eight main volcanic islands of the Hawaiian Islands. Unpopulated, it lies about seven miles (11 km) southwest of Maui. The island is 11 mi (18 km) long by 6.0 mi (9.7 km) wide, with a total land area of 44.97 sq mi (116.47 km). Its highest point is the crater of Lua Makika, at the summit of Puʻu Moaulanui, about 1,477 feet (450 m) above sea level.

Kahoʻolawe is relatively dry, with an average annual rainfall of less than 26 in (66 cm) resulting from a combination of being too low to generate much orographic precipitation from the northeastern trade winds and lying in the rain shadow of eastern Maui's 10,023-foot-high (3,055 m) volcano, Haleakalā. More than one quarter of Kahoʻolawe has been eroded down to saprolitic hardpan soil, largely on exposed surfaces near the summit.

The Mojave Desert (/moʊˈhɑːvi, mə-/ ; Mohave: Hayikwiir Mat'aar; Spanish: Desierto de Mojave) is a desert in the rain shadow of the southern Sierra Nevada mountains and Transverse Ranges in the Southwestern United States. Named after the indigenous Mohave people, it is located primarily in southeastern California and southwestern Nevada, with small portions extending into Arizona and Utah.

The Mojave Desert, together with the Sonoran, Chihuahuan, and Great Basin deserts, form a larger North American desert. Of these, the Mojave is the smallest and driest. It displays typical basin and range topography, generally having a pattern of a series of parallel mountain ranges and valleys. It is also the site of Death Valley, which is the lowest elevation in North America. The Mojave Desert is often colloquially called the "high desert", as most of it lies between 2,000 and 4,000 feet (610 and 1,220 m). It supports a diversity of flora and fauna.

Nyiri Desert, also called The Nyika, Taru Desert, Taru desert, is a desert in southern Kenya. It is located east of Lake Magadi and between Amboseli, Tsavo West and Nairobi National Parks. A high proportion of Kajiado County's land area is covered by the Nyiri Desert. Its aridity is caused by the rain shadow of Mount Kilimanjaro.

The shortgrass prairie is an ecosystem located in the Great Plains of North America. The two most dominant grasses in the shortgrass prairie are blue grama (Bouteloua gracilis) and buffalograss (Bouteloua dactyloides), the two less dominant grasses in the prairie are greasegrass (Tridens flavus) and sideoats grama (Bouteloua curtipendula). The prairie was formerly maintained by grazing pressure of American bison, which is the keystone species. Due to its semiarid climate, the shortgrass prairie receives on average less precipitation than that of the tall and mixed grass prairies to the east.

Lying largely in the rain shadow of the mountains to the west, the prairie includes lands in the eastern foothills of the Rocky Mountains and extends east as far as Nebraska and north into Saskatchewan. The prairie stretches through parts of Alberta, Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Kansas, and passes south through the high plains of Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico.

Eastern Oregon is a region of the U.S. state of Oregon. It is not an officially recognized geographic entity; thus, the boundaries of the region vary according to context. It is sometimes understood to include only the eight easternmost counties in the state; in other contexts, it includes the entire area east of the Cascade Range. Cities in the basic eight-county definition include Baker City, Burns, Hermiston, Pendleton, Boardman, John Day, La Grande, and Ontario. Umatilla County is home to the largest population base in Eastern Oregon, accounting for 42% of the region's residents — more than twice that of the region’s second most populous, Malheur County. Hermiston, located in Umatilla County, is the largest city in the region, accounting for 10% of the population. Major industries include transportation/warehousing, timber, agriculture and tourism. The main transportation corridors are I-84, U.S. Route 395, U.S. Route 97, U.S. Route 26, U.S. Route 30, and U.S. Route 20.

Compared to that of the western part of the state, the climate of Eastern Oregon has a drier continental climate, with much greater seasonal variations in temperature. Unlike the Willamette Valley, Eastern Oregon receives a significant amount of snow in the winter. Some areas receive fewer than 10 inches (250 mm) of rain yearly, classifying them as deserts. This desert climate is in part due to a rain shadow effect caused by the Cascade Range. Pine and juniper forests cover 35% of Eastern Oregon, much in the mountains that include the Blue Mountains, Strawberry Mountains, Wallowa Mountains, Trout Creek Mountains, Ochoco Mountains, and Steens Mountain. Volcanic basalt flows from the Columbia River Basalt Group covered large sections of Eastern Oregon 6 to 17 million years ago. Other landforms include the Alvord Desert, Owyhee Desert, Warner Valley, Deschutes River, Owyhee River, Grande Ronde River, Joseph Canyon, The Honeycombs, and Malheur Butte.

A Foehn, or Föhn (German pronunciation: [føːn], UK: /fɜːn/, US: /feɪn/ fayn, US also /fʌn, fɜːrn/ fu(r)n), is a type of dry, relatively warm downslope wind in the lee of a mountain range. It is a rain shadow wind that results from the subsequent adiabatic warming of air that has dropped most of its moisture on windward slopes (see orographic lift). As a consequence of the different adiabatic lapse rates of moist and dry air, the air on the leeward slopes becomes warmer than equivalent elevations on the windward slopes.

Foehn winds can raise temperatures by as much as 14 °C (25 °F) in just a matter of hours. Switzerland, southern Germany, and Austria have a warmer climate due to the Foehn, as moist winds off the Mediterranean Sea blow over the Alps.

The Chilean Coastal Range (Spanish: Cordillera de la Costa) is a mountain range that runs from north to south along the Pacific coast of South America parallel to the Andean Mountains, extending from Morro de Arica in the north to Taitao Peninsula, where it ends at the Chile triple junction, in the south. The range has a strong influence on the climate of Chile since it produces a rain shadow to the east. Because of this the vegetation growing on the seaward slopes is much more exuberant than in the interior. Compared to the coastal lowlands and the Intermediate Depression, it is sparsely populated with land use varying from protected areas to grazing and silviculture. The range is present in all Chilean regions, except for Coquimbo Region and Magallanes Region.

Troodos or Trodos is the largest mountain range in Cyprus, located roughly in the centre of the island. Its highest peak is Mount Olympus – also known in Greek as Χιονίστρα (Hionistra) - at 1,952 metres (6,404 ft).

Covering a third of Cyprus's area, the Troodos mountain range stretches across most of the western side of the island. The mountains form a significant rain shadow on the island. There are many mountain resorts, Byzantine monasteries, and churches on the peaks, as well as villages nestling in its valleys and clinging to terraced hillsides. The area has been known since antiquity for its mines, which for centuries supplied copper to the entire Mediterranean. During the Byzantine period it became a centre of Byzantine art, as churches and monasteries were built in the mountains, away from the threatened coastline.

This list of North American deserts identifies areas of the continent that receive less than 10 in (250 mm) annual precipitation. The "North American Desert" is also the term for a large U.S. Level 1 ecoregion (EPA) of the North American Cordillera, in the Deserts and xeric shrublands biome (WWF). The continent's deserts are largely between the Rocky Mountains and Sierra Madre Oriental on the east, and the rain shadow–creating Cascades, Sierra Nevada, Transverse, and Peninsular Ranges on the west. The North American xeric region of over 95,751 sq mi (247,990 km) includes three major deserts, numerous smaller deserts, and large non-desert arid regions in the Western United States and in northeastern, central, and northwestern Mexico.

Owens Valley (Mono: Payahǖǖnadǖ, meaning "place of flowing water") is an arid valley of the Owens River in eastern California in the United States. It is located to the east of the Sierra Nevada, west of the White Mountains and Inyo Mountains, and is split between the Great Basin Desert and the Mojave Desert. The mountain peaks on its west side (including Mount Whitney) reach above 14,000 feet (4,300 m) in elevation, while the floor of the Owens Valley is at about 4,000 feet (1,200 m), making the valley the deepest in the United States. The Sierra Nevada casts the valley in a rain shadow, which makes Owens Valley "the Land of Little Rain". The bed of Owens Lake, now a predominantly dry endorheic alkali flat, sits on the southern end of the valley.

The current arid nature of the valley is mostly due to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power diverting the water of the region. The valley provides water to the Los Angeles Aqueduct, the source of one-third of the water for city, and was the area at the center of one of the fiercest and longest-running episodes of the California Water Wars. Owens Lake was completely emptied by 1926, only 13 years after Los Angeles began diverting water. The water diversions inspired aspects of the 1974 film Chinatown.

Saline Valley is a large, deep, and arid graben, about 27 miles (43 km) in length, in the northern Mojave Desert of California, a narrow, northwest–southeast-trending tectonic sink defined by fault-block mountains. Most of it became a part of Death Valley National Park when the park was expanded in 1994. This area had previously been administered by the Bureau of Land Management. It is located northwest of Death Valley proper, south of Eureka Valley, and east of the Owens Valley. The valley's lowest elevations are about 1,000 ft (300 m) and it lies in the rain shadow of the 14,000 ft (4,300 m) Sierra Nevada range, plus the 11,000 ft (3,400 m) Inyo Mountains bordering the valley on the west.

Mu River (Burmese: မူးမြစ်, MLCTS: mu: mrac; IPA: [mú mjɪʔ]) is a river in upper central Myanmar (Burma), and a tributary of the country's chief river, the Irrawaddy. It drains the Kabaw valley and part of the Dry Zone between the Ayeyarwady to the east and its largest tributary the Chindwin River to the west. It flows directly north to south for about 275 km (171 mi) and enters the Ayeyarwady west of Sagaing near Myinmu.

Its catchment area above the Kabo weir is 12,355 square kilometres (4,770 sq mi). River flow and rainfall are both seasonal and erratic, at its lowest from January to April, rising sharply during May and June, and high from August to October. Because the Mu lies within the Dry Zone in the rain shadow of the Arakan Mountains, it receives scanty summer monsoon rainfall with a total streamflow of 350 millimetres (14 in). An old popular expression in Burmese goes thus: Ma myinbu, Mu myit htin (မမြင်ဖူး မူးမြစ်ထင်) - If you haven't seen a river before, you'd think the Mu is it. It may also be called Mu Chaung (creek) rather than Mu Myit (river) by some.

Lop Nur or Lop Nor (Uyghur: لوپنۇر, Oirat: ᠯᠣ᠊ᠫ
ᠨᡇᡇᠷ, romanized: Lob nuur, from an Oirat Mongolic name meaning "Lop Lake", where "Lop" is a toponym of unknown origin) is a now largely dried-up salt lake formerly located within the Lop Depression in the eastern fringe of the Tarim Basin in the southeastern portion of the Xinjiang Autonomous Region, northwestern China, between the Taklamakan and Kumtag deserts. Administratively, the lake is in Lop Nur town (Chinese: 罗布泊镇; pinyin: Luóbùpō zhèn), also known as Luozhong (罗中; Luózhōng) of Ruoqiang County, which in its turn is part of the Bayingolin Mongol Autonomous Prefecture.

The lake system, into which the Tarim River and Shule River drain from the west and east respectively, is the last remnant of the historical post-glacial Tarim Lake, which once covered more than 10,000 km (3,900 sq mi) in the Tarim Basin but had progressively shrunk throughout the Holocene due to rain shadowing by the Tibetan Plateau. Lop Nur is hydrologically endorheic; it is landbound, has no outlet, and has relied largely on meltwater runoffs from the Tianshan, Kunlun and the western Qilian Mountains. The lake measured 3,100 km (1,200 sq mi) in 1928, but has dried up due to construction of reservoirs which dammed the flow of water feeding into the lake, and only small seasonal lakes and salt marshes may form. The dried-up Lop Nur Basin is covered with a salt crust ranging from 30 to 100 cm (12 to 39 in) in thickness.

Riohacha (Spanish pronunciation: [rjoˈa.tʃa]; Wayuu: Süchiimma) is a city in the Riohacha Municipality in the northern Caribbean Region of Colombia by the mouth of the Ranchería River and the Caribbean Sea. It is the capital city of the La Guajira Department. It has a sandy beach waterfront.

Founded by conquistador Nikolaus Federmann in 1535, Riohacha was named after a local legend, "The legend of the Axe". Because of the powerful rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, the area is mostly desertic. It is inhabited primarily by Amerindians, predominantly the Wayuu ethnic group. During colonial times, Riohacha was a very important port, as divers could retrieve vast numbers of pearls from the harbor.