The Shadow is part of the Otherworld or spirit world. It isn't the whole spirit world, just a region of it, and to borrow some terminology from Dungeons and Dragons, it is a coexistent plane, that is it overlaps our reality. One of the unique properties of it, however, is that it functionally has a coterminous relationship to its connections to the mortal world, so there are specific places that are geographically stable, whereas most of the rest of the spirit world and the Shadow is relatively nebulous when it comes to its geographic layout in comparison to mortal reality.
To explain further, the overall coexistent nature of the spirit world is pretty easy to understand, it exists all around us, everywhere, at all times. Its secondary nature of being coterminous within that coexistent nature means that there are specific places that are like anchors. These places are either locations with significant amounts of natural energy, such as large waterfalls or particularly biologically diverse and active areas of forests, or cities. The degree of permanence is tied to the amount of spiritual energy, which is generated by living creatures and the natural environment, or by significant events such as major battles. These places are always connected to a version of them in the spirit world, and in particular in the Shadow. The landscape and geography within these locations is also stable and does not change significantly, so they are easily the most inhabitable. Outside of these areas things grow much more unstable, and one can enter the Shadow from two spots only a dozen feet from each other and end up miles apart in the Shadow, with no real discernible or calculable method for distance or direction.
This also holds true with respect to the overall geography of the Shadow, especially in relation to the cities. The layout of the Shadow as a whole does not correspond to that of the mortal world. That is to say that it is not like there is an exact map of the mortal world in the Shadow. Distance and location of individual cities largely seems random. The distance between Omaha and Paris may only be a hundred miles in the Shadow, whereas it is thousands in the mortal world and in the opposite direction. Some areas of stable geography do exist, especially where large settlements are connected by an overall metropolitan area. London, for example, is largely stable until one really gets to the country. Then distances start to get distorted.
When one does step into the Shadow, you do arrive in a shadowy double of where you'd been, the same terrain and environment specifics. However, the spirit world is far more vast than the mortal world and so the distances between two relatively close sites in the more chaotic locationality of rural areas just incorporates greater amounts of space and a seemingly random geographic layout.
The weather of the spirit world ranges from cold, damp and wet, such as a cold day in early spring, to cool, damp and somewhat dry, such as nighttime a little later in the spring. It never gets truly warm, though temperatures can rise to highs in the low 60's Fahrenheit, but usually hovers between the mid-40's and low-50's. It is also almost never dry. No matter the geography or environment of the corresponding mortal world location, it is always cool and damp. This is in part because there is no real sunlight. the little light one does get is like sunset once the sun has already gone below the horizon and there is only a haze of purples and dark reds on the distant clouds. There is also only a shadowy specter of the moon in the sky, so even on the rare nights when the sky is a little bit clear, there is little to no light, and only a few dim points for stars.
Because of the lack of sunlight there is little thriving vegetation, though somehow plants seem to cling to life, despite mold, spores and leaves beginning to rot. There are some species of plants that are native variations of mortal world plants, which somehow evolved to survive, or maybe always existed in the Shadow and able to live there.
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