Montane deserts are arid places with a very high altitude; the most prominent example is found north of the Himalayas, in the Kunlun Mountains and the Tibetan Plateau. Many locations within this category have elevations exceeding and the thermal regime can be hemiboreal. These places owe their profound aridity (the average annual precipitation is often less than 40 mm or 1.5 in) to being very far from the nearest available sources of moisture and are often in the lee of mountain ranges. Montane deserts are normally cold, or may be scorchingly hot by day and very cold by night as is true of the northeastern slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro.