Excerpt from The Rainfall of Chile
The main home of the Chileans lies between these extremes, mostly in north-and-south valleys between the Andes and coastal mountains, from latitude 310 to 380 S. In this part of Chile are Santiago, Valparaiso, and Concepci N-the chief cities. The rain increases southward along these valleys from the scanty 269 millimeters at Ligua to an abundant 1,250 millimeters at Temuco. Along the coastal mountains it is always greater, and here too it increases southward from 500 millimeters at Valparaiso to 2,700 millimeters at Valdivia. The Andean slopes are rainier than the coast in every latitude. The dryness of the interior valley and the wetness of the Andes is the novel feature of the new rainfall map, not recognizable on any of the old ones, though it is obvious on a brief journey in the country. Of clear sky and sunshine central Chile has an extraordinary amount. Evaporation must be very great.
Rains to West and Rain Shadow to East
The rains come from the Pacific. The valleys lie in the rain shadow of the coastal mountains, as the western Argentine plains lie in the greater rain shadow of the Andes. Always the western slopes are wet, the eastern ones dry. You see this in going from Valparaiso to Santiago by rail. Between Limache and Quillota the train moves northward at the foot of the coastal mountains, whose slopes are dotted with trees, poor-looking to one from a humid country but indicative of no little moisture. From Llai-Llai junction we go south to Santiago in a valley back of the coast range and find the eastern side of the range almost entirely sterile. There is a stream channel in the valley in which water must flow at times, for there is the work that water does-the channel carving, the boulders it drags along; but even after the rainy season has well set in in the south there are only pools of green, scummy water here and there in the stream bed. The hillsides have become bare.
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