 Chivela Pass

The Chivela Pass is a narrow mountain pass in the Sierra Madre Mountains that funnels cooler, drier air from the North American continent, through southern Mexico, into the Pacific.These northeasterly winds, specifically the Tehuano wind, which periodically blows across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in southern Mexico, and offshore over hundreds of miles of the Pacific Ocean, forcing the upwelling of colder subsurface waters.