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Swiss alps vs austrian alps.
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i always see in pictures the swiis alps being covered in more snow and the austrian allps having dryer mountains.
maybe by the time the moisture gets dumped on switserland before it gets to austria th same as the hymalayas block moisture from getting to mongolia which is ver high but pretty dry especially with the gobi desert
this year might be an exception, with some austrian resorts getting pwned with snow r now
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From what I can tell, the big storms from the north or northwest have a tendency to hit France, Switzerland and the Arlberg region before blowing farther east to the rest of the Austrian Alps. This last storm had so much power that it just blasted along the whole length of the Alps for days.
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just to be clear. you compared the swiss alps to the austrian alps (200-400km depending on where you take your measurements) to be similar to the himalaya to mongolia (2500km).
That's like saying the rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada range is to the Basin and Ranges desert (200-400km) would be the same as the Front Range of the Colorado Rockies to Washington DC. (2500km)
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well u know what i mean its the gobi desert in tibet not mongolia
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I'm a big nerd when it comes to geography, so not the guy to get into "arguments" about this kind of stuff with.
The Gobi Desert is not in Tibet or part of the Tibetan Plateau. It lies half in Mongolia, half in northern China. Now, it is true that the Gobi Desert lies in the rain shadow of the Himalaya Mountains (even though the nearest edge of the Desert lies around 2000KM from the mountain range) along with the Tibetan Plateau.
What I thought was funny was that you were comparing one of the worlds largest rain shadows to a possible rain shadow within a small (on the global scale) mountain range. Rain shadows exist everywhere in the world in all sizes from across the valley to across continents.
Anyways, back on the subject at hand. I did some research, and it seams like most of the weather in the Alps comes from either the north or south and places like Val D'Isere, France and Andermatt, Switzerland apparently sit in spots where they can get snow from storms coming from either direction. Other places sit in locations where they get skunked for weather depending on where the storm comes from (Zermatt, Switzerland is one of these I guess?). Also the Alberg Region of Austria seams to get the most snow in the whole range on average.
So there you have it. Austria apparently doesn't lie in a rain shadow of the Swiss Alps. On top of that - it also holds the area of the Alps that gets the most snow and Switzerland holds the area with the least amount of snow (Zermatt).
Well, I know I learned something new today.
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