rain shadow

The dry area on the leeward side of a mountain range, created when moist air is forced upward over the mountains, drops its moisture as precipitation on the windward side, and arrives on the other side warm, dry, and wrung out. The rain shadow is the mountain's gift to one side and its theft from the other. Eastern Oregon, Nevada, and the Owens Valley of California exist in the rain shadow of the Cascades and the Sierra Nevada.