Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 9-11:
Pressure belt loc-
ations during the
wet and dry mon-
soons.
For example, Mumbai (Bombay), India (Lat. 19° N) receives 72 inches of rain during June-Septem-
ber. In contrast, it receives less than half an inch during December-April. For some reason, many
people associate “monsoon” strictly with the rainy season. Inreality,there are twomonsoons,wet and
dry, and each significantly impacts the region, albeit in entirely different ways.
The wettest place on Earth?
Cherrapunji, India, has the wettest recorded climate of any settlement on Earth. I include
the question mark with the title because there may be wetter locales that go unrecorded.
In any event, it may be near impossible to beat 425 inches of precipitation per year.
That's Cherrapunji — more than an inch of rain per day on average. But even that doesn't
tell the whole story. Check out the following table, and pay attention to the substantial
monthly variation.
Cherrapunji has a dry monsoon season that runs from November through February, dur-
ing which it receives about 7 inches of rain. But then things change rather dramatically.
In an average June and July, the town receives more than 3 inches of rain
per day,
be-
fore things taper off to a mere 2+ inches per day in August, and an inch-plus in Septem-
ber. Cherrapunji exemplifies the extreme conditions that can occur when two climatic de-
terminants “pull together.” In this case, a fortuitously located low-pressure system and
the effects of altitude combine. The town is 4,300 feet above sea. Thus, when the wet
monsoonal winds are forced to rise in and around Cherrapunji, the results are very wet
indeed.
