A study of the world rainfall map, shows that along the east coasts of Central and South America, Madagascar, Indochina, the Philippines, and northeastern Australia, in latitudes 10° to 25°, there are narrow belts of heavy rainfall. These are coasts exposed to moist maritime tropical air masses brought by the tropical easterlies, or trade winds, from the oceanic subtropical highs. These air masses are abundantly supplied with moisture, as is typical of maritime tropical air on the western sides of the high-pressure cells. When these air masses encounter the hill and mountain slopes of the coasts, a heavy orographic precipitation results. Easterly waves cause periods of rainy weather. In addition, the high sun solstice period sees the onset of tropical cyclones, to which these coasts are vulnerable.
Because of its coastal position with respect to the easterlies, this climate may be called a trade-wind littoral climate. Under the Koppen system it is included with the rain forest climate Af and Am. It is treated as a separate climate here because the precipitation characteristics differ from the wet equatorial climate, and the temperatures show a somewhat more pronounced annual range.
The total rainfall is great, almost 80 in (200 cm) annually, and rain is abundant in most months. A tendency toward dryness, typical of the tropical wet-dry climates (which generally elsewhere lie at this same latitude), is seen in the low rainfall of February, March, and April. The temperature cycle has a range of only 9°F (5°C) because of the moderating influence of the nearby ocean but this range is conspicuously greater than that of the wet equatorial climate.
The warm, wet climates of trade-wind coasts support tropical rain forest vegetation, somewhat similar to the equatorial rain forest.
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