Do You Live In A Wyoming Snow Shadow?

Snow hole, or snow shadow?

You choose which sounds better to you, it's the same thing.

The image above is of a cloudless day and shows several shadows around Wyoming.

Ever notice that one Wyoming town might get buried under a mountain of snowfall, but another town just up the road a bit got nothing?

Funny how that works.

Also, logical, once you understand how the wind blows.

It's all about where the storm is coming from and how that wind is blowing.

In a recent forecast for Cowboy State Daily regional weatherman Don Day, of Day Weather, explains how "snow shadows," or "snow holes," work.

Scroll 2:07 into this video to see Don Day's explanation. 

You can see by looking at these pictures those areas that did not get any snow, yet there's a lot of while around them.

Notice where the mountain ranges are.

That blowing wind will downslope on one side of the mountains and prevent snow from forming and falling on the areas behind it.

This is what causes the "shadow" effect.

But when a storm comes at us in a spinning pattern and rotates around those same areas that are shadowed will fill with snow and the other side of the mountains miss out.

That's why it's important to watch where the storm and the winds are coming from to decide if you're going to get a lot of snow or if you'll miss out.

These shadows also work on a much larger scale, creating lush green areas but also deserts across every continent on Earth.