Seasonal Climatic conditions in India

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Seasonal Climatic conditions in India

Climate in India varies significantly from the permanently snow-capped Himalayas in the north to the tropics in the south. The country has four seasons. December to February is relatively dry and cool, March to May is dry and hot, from June to September predominating southwest maritime winds bring monsoon rains to most of the country, and in October and November there are retreating dry monsoons originating from the northeast. Average temperatures range from 12.5̊ C to 30̊ C in the northwest, 17.5̊ C to 30̊ C in the north and northeast, and 22.5̊ C to 30̊ C in the south. Average annual rainfall is around 1,000 to 1,500 millimeters for much of the country, but can be quite low in some parts of the northwest (150 to 300 millimeters annually) and very high in the northeast and along the west coast (1,500 to 2,500 millimeters annually).

The Himalayas isolate South Asia from the rest of Asia. South of these mountains, the climate, like the terrain, is highly diverse, but some geographers give it an overall, one-word characterization–violent. What geographers have in mind is the abruptness of change and the intensity of effect when change occurs–the onset of the monsoon rains, sudden flooding, rapid erosion, extremes of temperature, tropical storms, and unpredictable fluctuations in rainfall. Broadly speaking, agriculture in India is constantly challenged by weather uncertainty.

Summer

The worst time to be in India is in May or early June, the months right before the monsoon. It is extremely hot at this time and it is not unusual for dust storms packing 65 mile per hour winds to strike New Delhi. Women sometimes collapse and die from heat exhaustion after laboring for eight hours in the fields and then walking many kilometers to haul water back to their homes.

Fist fights break out at water taps and profiteers sell gallon jugs of water for the equivalent f a week’s pay. Industrial plants and movie houses shut down because there is not enough water in the rivers to generate dam-produced electricity. Elephants migrate from the parched forest onto the farms of villagers and the air smell likes iodine. The monsoon is supposed to arrive around June 1st, and every day it is late exacerbates the misery.

Monsoons in India

The monsoons in India form two branches: the first, the southwest monsoon, sweeps from the Arabian Sea and drenches the Malabar coast of western India and then sweeps down towards Sri Lanka. The second, the southeast, moves northward around the same time from the Bay of Bengal and drenches Bangladesh and eastern Indian and then curves off towards the northwestern part of the country.

The southwest monsoon blows in from sea to land and usually breaks on the west coast early in June and reaches most of South Asia by the first week in July. Because of the critical importance of monsoon rainfall to agricultural production, predictions of the monsoon’s arrival date are eagerly watched by government planners and agronomists who need to determine the optimal dates for plantings.

With onset of summer in India in April, the land heats up more rapidly than the ocean and the monsoon winds begin to blow from west to east from the Arabian Sea inland across the Indian subcontinent. At the beginning of the summer monsoon “a low pressure area forms as heated air above the land expands, and rises and warm ocean air moves in to take its place. Passing over the hills and highland, the ocean winds then drop their moisture as torrential summer rains.” The rain falls from June to September. The wind blow from west to east from April or May to September.

During the southeast monsoon (the second or autumn monsoon) the situation is reversed. As the land cools down more rapidly than the sea, a low-pressure area develops over the ocean from October to December, and the dry monsoon winds blow steadily seaward from east to west.

In ancient times and even today dhows steered by Arab, Persian and Indian mariners utilized the monsoon winds to travel across the Arabian Sea between the Middle East, the Persian Gulf and India. Sinbad the sailor is said to have reached China from Arabia by riding the monsoons and Islam reached India as well as Malaysia and Indian on the same winds.

Winter season in india

Starting from November lasting till March, the winter days in Indiaare bright and pleasant. The hilly regions of northern India observe some snowfall also in the months of January. The soft sun of the winters in India appears to be singing soothing lullabies which may make you fall asleep as soon as you sit under sun.

But the fun of sun is interrupted too at times by the winter rains and severe cold waves from west to east passing through the northern part of the country, mainly during November to April. January is generally the coldest month of the year wherein the temperature drops down to less than 15 degrees even. In some of the hilly areas, the temperature even goes below zero degrees.

But this otherwise pleasant season of the year not only attracts the maximum of tourist traffic to India but also invites an innumerable bird species to its pleasant surroundings. The bird sanctuaries in India are flocked by a multitude of migratory birds in winters that live in a harmonious conjunction with the resident birds here and uphold a unique example of mutual bonding.

 

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