rain shadow

plural rain shadows

1. climatologyAn area of diminished precipitation on the lee side of mountains, caused by the prior release of moisture on the windward side.

   A pronounced 'rain shadow' and chinook belt occur on the plateau district in the lee of these mountains.

   1896, “Current Notes on Physiography”, in Science, volume 3, number 72, page 732

   2 more examples

   As a necessary consequence of this analogous structure, we find no forests eastward of the slopes of the Rocky Mountains and the Cordilleras, or in their "rain shadow," but open steppes...

   1876, Oscar Peschel, The Races of Man: and Their Geographical Distribution, D. Appleton & Company, page 422

   In the modern day, the Andes cast a very strong rain shadow, resulting in the extreme aridity of the Atacama Desert.

   2022, Thomas Halliday, Otherworlds, Penguin, published 2023, page 59