Tatacoa Desert

Tatacoa Desert

The Tatacoa Desert (Spanish Desierto de la Tatacoa) is a desert of about 330 km² in Colombia. It is located in the northern part of Huila province, in the Magdalena valley, about 40 km north of the provincial capital Neiva and only 3 ° north of the equator.

The average temperature is above 28 ° C.

The Tatacoa Desert owes its origin to the particular geographic position between the two mountain ranges of the Central and Eastern Cordilleras in a drying basin at the foot of the East Cordillera. As a result, it lies in the double rain shadow and remains usually low in precipitation during the rainy season. Due to the high average temperature, the rainfall of about 1000 mm per year is not sufficient to compensate evaporation.

The name Tatacoa comes from a snake species originally native to the desert but now extinct.

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