The cloud forest
Laurel, moss and fern in dim green light.
Zala — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Jan Kraus (https://www.flickr.com/photos/johny/) — CC BY 2.0 · Jan Kraus (https://www.flickr.com/photos/johny/) — CC BY 2.0 · Jan Kraus (https://www.flickr.com/photos/johny/) — CC BY 2.0
**A cloud forest of laurels surviving from before the ice ages — and a UNESCO biosphere reserve** — in Tenerife's far northeast. ⚠ **The forest is the story**: ***laurisilva* — an evergreen laurel forest** ✅ **that covered the whole Mediterranean basin millions of years ago**, ⚠ **then was wiped from Europe by the glaciations**; **and it survived here** because the islands' climate did not change. ✅ **So it is a living fossil**: **trees, mosses and ferns from another age** — **many of which exist nowhere else on earth**. ⚠ **The mist is what keeps it**: **trade winds carrying Atlantic moisture strike the mountains** — ✅ **so it condenses and drops its water**; **which is called horizontal rain**. ⚠ **And Anaga is the oldest part of Tenerife** — **sharp ridges and deep ravines**.
Laurel, moss and fern in dim green light.
An isolated village on the north coast with black beaches.
Views over the ravines and the ocean from the ridge.
Parque Rural de Anaga, 38129 Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain
**Because a 3,700-metre mountain stands in the path of a steady moist wind — making two climates on its two sides.** ✅ **The trade winds**: ⚠ **blow constantly over the Canaries from **the northeast**** — **across the Atlantic**, ✅ **carrying a great deal of moisture**. ✅ **The collision**: **when that wind meets the island's mountains** — ⚠ **it is forced to rise**; **rising air cools**, **and cool air cannot hold water vapour**; ✅ **so the vapour condenses and forms **a sea of cloud** at roughly 800–1,500 metres**. ⚠ **The consequence in the north**: **damp, mist, rain and dense green** — ✅ **hence the forests of Anaga and La Orotava**. ⚠ **The consequence in the south**: **the air descends the far side having lost its moisture** — ✅ **so it warms and dries**; **producing a **rain shadow**: **southern Tenerife is semi-desert, sunny and dry**. ✅ **Which is why all the hotels are in the south** — **the sun is guaranteed**. ✅ **⚠ And the third layer, above the cloud**: **the caldera at 2,000 metres sits **above** the cloud sea** — ⚠ **so its air is extremely dry and clear**, ✅ **hence the observatories**. ⚠ **So one island holds three climates stacked on top of one another.**
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