This image of Southern California, from the desert at Mojave to the ocean at Ventura, shows a variety of landscapes and environments. Winds usually bring moisture to this area from the west, moving from the ocean, across the coastal plains, to the mountains, and then to the deserts.
Most rainfall occurs as the air masses rise over the mountains and cool with altitude.
Continuing east, and now drained of their moisture, the air masses drop in altitude and warm as they spread across the desert. The mountain rainfall supports forest and chaparral vegetation, seen here, and also becomes ground water and stream flow that supports citrus, avocado, strawberry, other crops, and a large and growing population on the coastal plains. This perspective view was generated by draping a Landsat satellite image over a preliminary topographic map from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission. It shows the Tehachapi Mountains in the right foreground, the city of Ventura on the coast at the distant left, and the easternmost Santa Ynez Mountains forming the skyline at the distant right. Landsat has been providing visible and infrared views of the Earth since 1972.