Tracking the Elusive Rain Shadow

Living on the leeward side of Southern California's Transverse Mountain Range, for almost twenty years now has made me well aware of the geoclimographical reality known as a rain shadow. The Goal of this virtual field trip is to provide sets of points between which lay some of the most influential and unequal distributions of annual precipitation measurements our planet has to offer as examples of this phenomenon.

Each of the lat/long pairings that follow are preceded by a name that will give some idea as to where Google Earth (GE) will fly you to. The first datum of the pairing will designate a windward point (wet side), the second a leeward point (dry side) of the rain shadow's transect being traced between the parings. The first pairing creates my desert home.

As always, lets start our trip in the AAE's backyard, the Mojave Desert, a temperate desert formed by the rain shadow cast by Southern California's Transverse Coastal Mountain Range . Assuming that you have opened GE and made the changes addressed above, find the Search arrow in the upper left corner of the GE window and open it by clicking on it. Once open click on the "Fly To" option. To travel on GE to AAE's campus in the middle of the Mojave Desert of Southern California, copy and paste the following latitude and longitude (lat, long) of 34°31'58.81"N, 117°16'44.16"W into the text box in GE's Fly To search engine (click on the magnifying glass/or tap the enter key to activate your search... hop). You will be "flown" to the middle of the our Mojave River Campus. Zoom out using the "-" minus key (zoom in using the "+" key) and explore around the campuses environs, getting close enough to see some of its surface features and plant life. The arrow keys will also help you navigate in any compass direction (ie. NEWS). Use some of the features of GE to "mess around" a bit and see what GE can add to your experience before leaving the campus and visiting examples of our planet's rain shadowed lands.

North America

• Pacific Coast, Mojave Desert Paring; ( 33°40'26.44"N, 118° 7'3.15"W ) & ( 34°52'57.56"N, 117°27'51.13"W )
• San Joaquin-Sierra Nevada, Death Valley Paring; ( 35°59'47.13"N, 118°45'32.66"W ) & (36° 5'8.57"N, 117°16'31.26"W )
• Olympic Peninsula, Columbia Plateau Paring; ( 46°58'46.17"N, 124°46'15.16"W) & ( 46°23'46.71"N, 118°52'41.71"W )

South America

• Amazon, Atacama-Sechura Desert Paring; ( 9°48'52.13"S, 54°28'45.29"W) & ( 7°27'29.43"S, 79°33'27.19"W )
• Andes, Patagonia Paring; ( 37°37'3.49"S, 78°18'48.06"W) & ( 39°12'24.95"S, 68°35'59.57"W )

Africa

• Madagascar East, Madagascar West Paring; ( 19°28'8.18"S, 7 51°45'16.93"E) & ( 20°20'42.68"S, 46°22'41.38"E )

Asia

• Indian Sub-continent, Tibetan Plateau Paring; ( 20°35'37.26"N, 78°57'46.37"E) & ( 32°27'14.52"N, 86°50'50.39"E )
• Deccan Plateau, Thar Desert Paring; ( 21°51'57.73"N, 78°35'37.04"E) & ( 27°30'10.56"N, 72°27'47.60"E )
• Great Khingan Mountains, Ordos Desert Paring; ( 45°11'25.77"N, 100°14'46.50"E) & ( 37°15'5.90"N, 108° 8'11.05"E )

Eurasia

• Caucasus Mountains, Karakum and Kyzyl Kum Deserts Paring; ( 41°22'45.69"N, 42°18'19.93"E ) & ( 44°15'54.22"N, 62°46'12.26"E )

• Elburz and Zagros Mountains, Dasht-i-Lut Desert Paring; (37°28'8.27"N, 52°17'57.78"E ) & ( 30°23'39.39"N, 63°25'9.13"E )

Oceania

• Tasman Sea, East of the Southern Alps Paring; ( 42°28'0.69"S, 167°32'31.98"E ) & ( 44° 6'16.91"S, 171°22'33.11"E )