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14-584: In 1902, the Chauk-Lonywa oil field was discovered near Chauk, which is presently a major source of income for the town. On January 2, 2014, Singapore's Interra Resources announced that its jointly controlled entity, Goldpetrol Joint Operating Company Inc., had commenced drilling development well CHK 1177 in the Chauk oil field in Myanmar. Located in the “Dry Valley” of central Myanmar in the rain shadow of

28-399: A broad "shadow" of dry climate region behind the mountain crests . This climate typically takes the form of shrub–steppe , xeric shrublands or even deserts . The condition exists because warm moist air rises by orographic lifting to the top of a mountain range. As atmospheric pressure decreases with increasing altitude, the air has expanded and adiabatically cooled to the point that

42-457: A maximum Mercalli intensity of VI ( Strong ). Four people were killed and several ancient temples were damaged. A refinery was built in Chauk for the Chauk-Lonywa oil field that also processes crude oil that comes down a pipeline from Yenangyaung . The Chauk field was still producing natural gas as of 1995. This Magway Region location article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Rain shadow A rain shadow

56-411: Is an area of significantly reduced rainfall behind a mountainous region, on the side facing away from prevailing winds , known as its leeward side. Evaporated moisture from water bodies (such as oceans and large lakes ) is carried by the prevailing onshore breezes towards the drier and hotter inland areas. When encountering elevated landforms , the moist air is driven upslope towards

70-554: Is largely the result of the general circulation of the atmosphere . The latter does change significantly over time through climate change . For example, temperature increase by 1.5–2.1 percent across the Nile Basin over the next 30–40 years could change the region from semi-arid to arid, significantly reducing the land usable for agriculture . In addition, changes in land use can increase demands on soil water and thereby increase aridity. This climatology -related article

84-622: The Arakan Mountains , Chauk has a borderline hot semi-arid climate ( Köppen BSh ), being a little too dry to qualify as a tropical savanna climate ( Aw ) due to the extreme heat and high potential evapotranspiration . Unlike most monsoonal semi-arid climates, the rainy season in the “Dry Valley” is relatively long at around five to seven months, while variability and extreme monthly and daily rainfalls are much lower than usual with this type of climate. The 6.8 Mw Myanmar earthquake shook north-central Myanmar on August 24, 2016, with

98-740: The Southern Hemisphere . The westerlies are the prevailing winds in the middle latitudes between 30 and 60 degrees latitude , blowing predominantly from the southwest in the Northern Hemisphere and from the northwest in the Southern Hemisphere. Some of the strongest westerly winds in the middle latitudes can come in the Roaring Forties of the Southern Hemisphere, between 30 and 50 degrees latitude. Examples of notable rain shadowing include: On

112-438: The peak , where it expands, cools, and its moisture condenses and starts to precipitate . If the landforms are tall and wide enough, most of the humidity will be lost to precipitation over the windward side (also known as the rainward side) before ever making it past the top. As the air descends the leeward side of the landforms, it is compressed and heated, producing foehn winds that absorb moisture downslope and cast

126-783: The West Coast: Most rain shadows in the western United States are due to the Sierra Nevada mountains in California and Cascade Mountains , mostly in Oregon and Washington . The Colorado Front Range is limited to precipitation that crosses over the Continental Divide . While many locations west of the Divide may receive as much as 1,000 millimetres (40 in) of precipitation per year, some places on

140-484: The air reaches its adiabatic dew point (which is not the same as its constant pressure dew point commonly reported in weather forecasts). At the adiabatic dew point, moisture condenses onto the mountain and it precipitates on the top and windward sides of the mountain. The air descends on the leeward side, but due to the precipitation it has lost much of its moisture. Typically, descending air also gets warmer because of adiabatic compression (as with foehn winds) down

154-471: The eastern side, notably the cities of Denver and Pueblo, Colorado , typically receive only about 12 to 19 inches. Thus, the Continental Divide acts as a barrier for precipitation. This effect applies only to storms traveling west-to-east. When low pressure systems skirt the Rocky Mountains and approach from the south, they can generate high precipitation on the eastern side and little or none on

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168-810: The largest scale, the entirety of the North American Interior Plains are shielded from the prevailing Westerlies carrying moist Pacific weather by the North American Cordillera . More pronounced effects are observed, however, in particular valley regions within the Cordillera, in the direct lee of specific mountain ranges. This includes much of the Basin and Range Province in the United States and Mexico . The Pacific Coast Ranges create rain shadows near

182-470: The leeward side of the mountain, which increases the amount of moisture that it can absorb and creates an arid region. There are regular patterns of prevailing winds found in bands round Earth's equatorial region. The zone designated the trade winds is the zone between about 30° N and 30° S, blowing predominantly from the northeast in the Northern Hemisphere and from the southeast in

196-508: The western slope. Further east: Arid Aridity is the condition of a region that severely lacks available water, to the extent of hindering or preventing the growth and development of plant and animal life. Regions with arid climates tend to lack vegetation and are called xeric or desertic . Most arid climates are located in the subtropics ; these regions include parts of Africa , Asia , South America , North America , and Australia . The distribution of aridity at any time

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