00:00Have you ever looked at a map of the United States and wondered why the eastern half is
00:04full of forests while the western half has so many deserts? It's the same country,
00:09yet it has two very different landscapes between east and west. So why is that? It all comes down
00:16to the natural geography of the United States. This is the story of why the U.S. has deserts
00:22in the west and forests in the east, and the reason might surprise you. First off, the U.S.
00:28is huge, stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. But the real key to its climate
00:33lies in what happens in between them. Most of the moisture in the U.S. comes from the Atlantic Ocean
00:39and the Gulf of Mexico. That's why the eastern U.S. is so green, because it has plenty of water
00:45access
00:46and rainfall, and that feeds forests. So why doesn't it keep going to the west? Because when that air
00:52keeps moving west, something happens. It runs into the rocky mountains. Mountains act like giant
00:58walls. When moist air hits mountains, it rises. By the time the air makes it over the rocky mountains
01:04and down to the other side, it's dry. This creates a rain shadow effect on its western side, creating
01:11deserts. That's why so much of the western U.S., from Nevada to Arizona to California, is full of
01:18deserts. However, the west still has some rainfall, especially in places like Seattle or Portland,
01:25due to the Pacific Ocean. But it doesn't remove the rain shadow effect to the other states. So why
01:31does U.S. have deserts in the west and forests in the east? Because of the Atlantic Ocean, Gulf of
01:37Mexico, and most importantly, the Rocky Mountains. And that proves to you a natural mountain might just
01:44change your western and eastern climate.
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