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The Andes mountains block rain and moisture from the Amazon basin to the west . The Atacama Desert in Chile is the driest non-polar desert on Earth because it is blocked from moisture by the Andes Mountains to the east while the Humboldt Current causes persistent atmospheric stability.
The Andes (/ ˈ æ n d iː z / AN-deez), Andes Mountains or Andean Mountain Range (Spanish: ... As the uplift of the Andes created a rain shadow on the western ...
It covers the lower valley of the Marañón River and its tributaries along the eastern edge of the Andes. It has a dry climate due to rain shadow from mountains further east. The habitat has long been modified by farming, ranching and logging and is now threatened by construction of hydroelectric and irrigation dams.
The Andes, to the desert's west, are the primary reason for the Patagonian desert status as they inhibit the westerly flow of moisture from the southern Pacific from reaching inland. This creates a rain shadow that accounts for the formation of the desert and is why, despite approximately half of the desert being only about 200 miles from the ...
The north–south orientation of the Andes creates a barrier for humid air masses coming from the Pacific Ocean, forming an extensive rain shadow and causing most of the region to be arid. [ 15 ] [ 116 ] South of 52°S, the Andes are lower in elevation, reducing the rain shadow effect in Tierra del Fuego Province and allowing forests to thrive ...
The temperate Valdivian, matorral, and Magellanic ecoregions are isolated from the subtropical/tropical forests that dominate northern South America by such landscapes as the Atacama desert (north of the matorral), the Andes Mountains, and the dry, rain-shadow Patagonian steppe east of the Andes.
Cold desert climates are typically located in temperate zones in the 30s and 40s latitudes, usually in the leeward rain shadow of high mountains, restricting precipitation from the westerly winds. An example of this is the Patagonian Desert in Argentina, bounded by the Andes ranges to its west.
To the south in the westerlies, the rain shadow that the Southern Andes cast over eastern Patagonia similarly blocks moisture. [1] South of Mendoza (32°53' S), the driest parts of the diagonal move away from the Andes as the mountains lose height, causing some humidity to penetrate; thus, at more southern latitudes the driest parts of the ...