Tower Peak is a mountain in the

Sierra Nevada The Sierra Nevada () is a mountain range in the Western United States, between the Central Valley of California and the Great Basin. The vast majority of the range lies in the state of California, although the Carson Range spur lies primarily ...

Mono Mono may refer to: Common meanings * Infectious mononucleosis, "the kissing disease" * Monaural, monophonic sound reproduction, often shortened to mono * Mono-, a numerical prefix representing anything single Music Performers * Mono (Japanese b ...

and

Tuolumne County Tuolumne County (), officially the County of Tuolumne, is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 55,620. The county seat and only incorporated city is Sonora. Tuolumne County comprises the ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. To the south of the summit is

Yosemite National Park Yosemite National Park ( ) is an American national park in California, surrounded on the southeast by Sierra National Forest and on the northwest by Stanislaus National Forest. The park is managed by the National Park Service and covers an ar ...

and to the north is the

Hoover Wilderness The Hoover Wilderness is a wilderness area in the Inyo and Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forests. It lies to the east of the crest of the central Sierra Nevada in California, to the north and east of Yosemite National Park - a long strip stretchin ...

. Mary Lake is to the west, Ehrnbeck Peak and

Hawksbeak Peak Hawksbeak Peak is a mountain summit with an elevation of located on the crest of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, in northern California, United States. The granitic summit is situated on the common boundary shared by Yosemite National Park wit ...

to the east. To the south are

Wells Peak Wells Peak is a granitic mountain summit with an elevation of located in Yosemite National Park, in Tuolumne County, California, United States. The peak is situated between Stubblefield and Thompson canyons in the Sierra Nevada mountain range. T ...

and Craig Peak. The next higher mountain is

Eagle Peak Eagle Peak is the name of 44 mountain peaks of the United States including: *Eagle Peak (Alaska) * Eagle Peak (Admiralty Island), in Alaska * Eagle Peak (Washington), a summit in Mount Rainier National Park *Eagle Peak (Mariposa County, California), ...

, about 8 mi east-northeast.

Climate

Tower Peak is located in an

alpine climate Alpine climate is the typical weather (climate) for elevations above the tree line, where trees fail to grow due to cold. This climate is also referred to as a mountain climate or highland climate. Definition There are multiple definitions of ...

zone. Most

weather front A weather front is a boundary separating air masses for which several characteristics differ, such as air density, wind, temperature, and humidity. Disturbed and unstable weather due to these differences often arises along the boundary. For in ...

s originate in the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

, and travel east toward the Sierra Nevada mountains. As fronts approach, they are forced upward by the peaks (

orographic lift Orographic lift occurs when an air mass is forced from a low elevation to a higher elevation as it moves over rising terrain. As the air mass gains altitude it quickly cools down adiabatically, which can raise the relative humidity to 100% and cr ...

), causing them to drop their moisture in the form of rain or snowfall onto the range. Leavitt Meadow

References

{{California highest Mountains of the Sierra Nevada (United States) Mountains of Mono County, California Mountains of Tuolumne County, California Mountains of Northern California North American 3000 m summits