Rain shadow

[Stratos Ferric]

Anyone with access to the radar today should go run an animation. One of the best examples of the Pennine rain shadow effect that you could wish to see. Light advective rainfall on the windward side and nothing in the lee of the hills.

[Geordiesnow]

Anyone with access to the radar today should go run an animation. One of the best examples of the Pennine rain shadow effect that you could wish to see. Light advective rainfall on the windward side and nothing in the lee of the hills.

Actually it has been raining in parts of Tyneside this morning. Whilst i was out in around Gateshead i could see the rain falling over Gateshead and Newcastle way. Did get a few lightish showers but its seems the radar did not pick the rain drops up.

[Stratos Ferric]

Actually it has been raining in parts of Tyneside this morning. Whilst i was out in around Gateshead i could see the rain falling over Gateshead and Newcastle way. Did get a few lightish showers but its seems the radar did not pick the rain drops up.

To be fair to the radar it does pick out the odd shower further E, and there was a heavier pulse off the NE for a while this morning, however the fact remains, and as I can attest, the general murk and wet is over the Pennines and west, despite the wind flow being along the line of the front (hence the stall).

[Geordiesnow]

And thanks to the wind blowing over the pennines its helps breaking the cloud up and feeling quite warm. Wind is quite cool but i assume its because i'm higher up(I'm not in me location of what you see[Pelaw] atm). Those Pennines are brillant at times for days like these but i hate them when they block showers sometimes.

[PersianPaladin]

Actually it has been raining in parts of Tyneside this morning. Whilst i was out in around Gateshead i could see the rain falling over Gateshead and Newcastle way. Did get a few lightish showers but its seems the radar did not pick the rain drops up.

Sometimes not only lightish showers but also heavy showers can get through into Tyneside and Northumberland and miss County Durham and Wearside completely due to a lower-level topographic corridor in the Tynedale valley. This is of course; somewhat dependent on the wind direction too.

[Stratos Ferric]

Sometimes not only lightish showers but also heavy showers can get through into Tyneside and Northumberland and miss County Durham and Wearside completely due to a lower-level topographic corridor in the Tynedale valley. This is of course; somewhat dependent on the wind direction too.

Doubly so, arguably. A NW-ly attracts about as much protection from the uplands, but the airmass will tend to be more unstable so that any shower cloud, though poential moderated in passage over the hills, may also be augmented by orographic effects. Today is, as GW infers, an ideal set-up. I drove four miles E and was met by blue sky, dry surfaces, and a very mild breeze (apparent mildness more due to humidity than ambient temp though); I gather out towards the A1 (another twenty miles) it's sunny spells. Here, stratus and heavy drizzle. Hills tend to be better at butressing low layer clouds than they are vertically developed ones, but the foehn effect can diminish the latter leeward.

[Bobby]

I seem to live in a rain shadow if it's from the North or East, but a rain magnet if it's from the South or West. Probably because I am surrounded by mountains in all sorts of weird angles/

[Stratos Ferric]

I seem to live in a rain shadow if it's from the North or East, but a rain magnet if it's from the South or West. Probably because I am surrounded by mountains in all sorts of weird angles/

If you're in the valleys it's probably because you're on an upslope oriented S/W, in which case you'd definitely get orographic enhancement from anything frontal between 180-270 degrees or so.

[Osbourne One-Nil]

I noticed this yesterday alright, with 14mm of rain, falling pretty much constantly throughout the day.

[paul tall]

We're definitely in the rain shadow here in Newton Aycliffe with the Pennine foothills to the west. Osbourne only lives 37 miles west of me yet gets twice as much rainfall, or in yesterdays case, 14 times as much.

[Bobby]

If you're in the valleys it's probably because you're on an upslope oriented S/W, in which case you'd definitely get orographic enhancement from anything frontal between 180-270 degrees or so.

I think it's due to the Brecon Beacons to my north (I am only 6 miles from the national park) sucking all the rain out from anything from the north or east, but the mountains that are much closer to my south and west magnify it. That's my theory anyway.

[david16]

Same sort of thing happens in the winter here in Central Scotland. In 1 of these all too brief northerlies that we tend to get these days, all the snow packs in the North, and clips the east coast. Nothing here as per usual when there's a northerly.

The Falkirk area never in a rain shadow from every other possible wind direction in the winter, but all weather systems these days sweeping in from the atlantic, so the only precipitation we get is rain, rain and more and rain and also suffering from the horrendous +ve double figure temperatures.

Do people in Norwich only ever get snow as their only precipitation in the winter?

[Nick F]

Do people in Norwich only ever get snow as their only precipitation in the winter?

What makes you say that?

[Geordiesnow]

As this area is in the precipitation shadow, in winter we never Get really good frontal snow events. Last time frontal snow tried to come here(think it was in winter 05/06) it was quite an dissapointment because the snow was very light and never got any heavier. Fortunatley we already had lying snow so plenty of snow on the ground already. But apart from that this region is very good for snow events(Albeit you got to be at least 10 miles from the coast for Northerlies) and i could be in a much worse location. eg NW England. Saying that i will always love a really good frontal snow event to happen here - never experianced persistant moderate-heavy snow.

[SP1986]

Here, as some of you may know I live in an extremely potent rain shadow. Such is the potency of this rain shadow that i would estimate that only 50% of frontal rainfall events that occur actually affect this area. The step plateau effect has such a dramatic effect on the weather here, a ground is often dusty most of the year round, however we are not protected as such from the NW, despite this, rain even seems to miss us from that direction as well, because we are a peninsula.

So if having Mountain/Hill ranges all around you wasnt enough, we also have an island climate as well - Is it any wonder then that old wirral artists protrayed Thurstaston in a desert like image.