Consider a continent (or...big island?) the size of the UK. Along one coast there are mountains about 3km high, going inland about 50km. The rest of the continent has no mountains. Would there be a rain shadow from those mountains? Is there any reasonable way for there not to be? I need an agricultural civilization to live in the foothills, so I need rain.
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asked Jan 1, 2022 at 13:42
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$\begingroup$ The Alps are (more than) 3000 meters high. Where is the rain shadow? $\endgroup$– AlexPCommented Jan 1, 2022 at 16:09
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4 Answers
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Entirely depends on the prevailing winds. Perhaps your island has seasonal winds, producing a dry and rainy season on each side.
Perhaps it would be easier to have the rain shadow be the coast. That way the inland people can farm and the coastal ones fish.
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I would say it entirely depends, like @Mary said, on the prevailing wind patterns. If you want some interesting real-world examples of the effect rain shadows can have on islands, might I suggest looking into Taiwan and Papua New Guinea, both have rather prominent rain-shadow effects.
If you want to make it rain on the interior, locate it in the southern Hemisphere of your planet [assuming earth-like conditions], and have the mountains be Western. Or, the northern hemisphere, at a latitude of 30-60, with eastward facing mountains. Either should give you a wide inland rain zone without much hand-waving.
Lastly, you can do some magic with warm-water currents and prevailing winds to create rain-forests that fade into temperate grasslands and chapporral in the inland foothills. Alpine meadows also make excellent agriculture, or glacial melt valleys, or any number of natural phenomenae.
Hope some of that helps!
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Tunnels carry water through the mountain from the wet side to the dry side.
https://imagesofoldhawaii.com/waiahole-water-company/
The general plan provided for collecting the water from the many streams and gulches on the windward side of Oahu by means of tunnels through the ridges or spurs, and conveying the water, after collecting, through the mountain in the main tunnel to the leeward side of the island, thence by tunnels, ditches and pipes, to the upper levels of Oahu Sugar Plantation.
The tunnels connect up the various streams on the North side, and take in the water at the adits in the gulches. There are 27 of these tunnels on the North side, varying in length from 280 feet to 2,332 feet, the aggregate length of the North side tunnels being 24,621 feet, or 4.66 miles, being in reality one continuous tunnel.
These tunnels were dug in the 1910s to irrigate the dry side of Oahu (in the rain shadow) with water collected from the wet side.
Have there be a rain shadow. Have there be a tunnel and the water flows out of it. It is old, this tunnel but it serves its purpose still. What is cooler for a fiction than an old tunnel?
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Yes. Tasmania is smaller in it's N/S extent than the UK but about the same E/W. The prevailing winds are Westerlies. The eastern side of the island is in the rain shadow caused by the Central Plateau which is about 1000 m. I live E of Mt Wellington (1270 m) which rises behind Hobart and recieve about 40% of the rain Hobart does.