Table Mountain. View of Table Mountain, Cape town shrouded in its famous 'Table Cloth' as seen from Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden, Cape Town, South Africa. The Table Cloth is an example of an orographic cloud formation (clouds that develop in response to the forced lifting of air by the earth's topography). As a south-easterly wind blowing up the mountain slopes meets colder air at higher altitude, condensation takes place and a thick mist forms that coats the top-most regions of the mountain. As the cloud cover pours over the side of the mountain, the process is reversed. Clouds encounter warmer air layers lower down, where the moisture evaporates making the clouds disappear.