The Monsoon Of The Western Ghats

The monsoon of the Western Ghats is so romantic, awesome, forceful, charming, worth experiencing phenomenon that you can almost fall in love with it!

The monsoon winds from the East Central Indian ocean strike with full fury at the Western Ghats which lie almost perpendicular to their trajectory. The winds must rise as the mountains do not allow them to cross over them. In the process, they are forced to rise 4000- 6000 feet and heavy rainfall occurs in a narrow strip all along the Ghats from Southern Tip of Kerala up to a few hundred miles north of Mumbai.

If you want to thoroughly enjoy monsoon in India, then Mahabaleshwar (height 4500 ft.) high up the Ghats and overlooking Mumbai is the place for you. The said station has 116 rainy days out of a total of 122 from June to September. It receives over 100 inches in July and a little over 250 inches during the whole monsoon season.

If we start moving along this narrow strip along the Western Ghats where on the eastern side we are bounded by mountains with an average height of 5000 feet and on the western side is the Indian ocean, we see that not all areas receive the same amount of rainfall.

Starting from Kerala coast, the rainfall is quite heavy; then moving along the strip towards Mumbai, the maxima occurs at Goa, then it reduces a little up to Mumbai. From Mumbai onwards the decrease becomes more rapid and by the time we reach Surat, the monsoon rain amount has reduced to 40 Inches.

Another interesting phenomenon is that the strip we are talking about is on the windward side. On the leeward side, i.e. on the other side of the Ghats, the rain amount falls sharply so that the Deccan plateau does not get even one tenth the amount we receive at Mahabaleshwar and at Hyderabad the monsoon rain reduces to a mere 15 inches. The reason being that the winds descends the other side as dry wind with very little moisture left in it.

In short, due to the orographic effect, the moisture laden winds are lifted by the Western Ghats to produce an exceptionally heavy, beautiful and charming rain along a narrow strip on the west coast of India. This rainfall is one of the most spectacular views to be watched in whole of India during the monsoon season