CLIMATE NOTES

Q1. Name the four main seasons of India.

Answer: Four main seasons of India are:

(i) The cold weather season
(ii) The hot weather season
(iii) The advancing monsoons
(iv) The retreating monsoons.

Q2.What is ‘Mahawat’?

Answer: The total amount of winter rainfall is locally known as ‘Mahawat’.

Q3 What is ‘Loo’?

Answer: These are strong gusty, hot dry winds blowing during the day over the north and
northwestern India.

Q4. What is the effect of ‘Dust storms’ in India during summers?

Answer: Dust storms are very common during the month of May in northern India. These storms
bring temporary relief as they lower the temperature and may bring light rain and cool breeze.

Q5. What is ‘Kaal Baisakhi’?

Answer: Kaal means destruction or calamity brought in the month of Baisakh. It is known as
Kaal Baisakhi. It occurs in West Bengal and are pre-monsoon showers.

Q6. What are ‘Mango-Showers’?

Answer: Mango showers are the pre-monsoon showers taking place on the coast of Kerala and
Karnataka. Since they help in the early ripening of mangoes, they are called Mango showers.

Q7. What does ‘breaks in rainfall’ mean?

Answer: It means wet and dry spells of rain. The monsoon rainfall takes place only for a few
days at a time, these rainless intervals in between are called as “breaks in rainfall”

Q8. What do you understand by October Heat?

Answer: (i) In the month of October, day temperatures are high, nights are cool and pleasant.
The land is still moist.
(ii) Owing to the conditions of high temperature and humidity, the weather becomes oppressive
during the day.
(iii) This condition is commonly known as October Heat.

Q9. How is monsoon known for its uncertainties?

Answer: (i) The alternation of dry and wet spells varies in intensity, frequency and duration.
(ii) It may cause heavy floods in one part and drought in the other part.
(iii) It is often irregular in its arrival and retreat. Hence, monsoons affect the farming schedule of
millions of farmers all over the country.

Q10 Why are Thiruvananthapuram and Shillong rainier in June?

Answer: (i) The monsoons break there with full fury, right in the beginning of June. This month
as a whole has good rains.
(ii) The monsoon also strikes these places directly. Their location helps them get the first and full
impact of the monsoon currents.

Q11. Why the houses in Rajasthan have thick walls and flat roofs?

Answer: In Rajasthan, the weather is very hot and there is less rainfall. Some part of the state is
covered with desert. The thick walls of the houses insulate the people against the heat in summer
and extreme cold in winter due to the desert. Flat roofs are easier to construct and as there is not
much rainfall, water will not collect on the rooftops.

Q12. Why is it that the houses in the Tarai region and in Goa and Mangalore have sloping
roofs?

Answer: The houses in the Tarai region and in Goa and Mangalore have sloping roofs because
they get heavy rain during the monsoon season. When there are sloping roofs, the rain water can
easily flow off towards the ground or to a receptive unit where water is collected instead of
collecting on the rooftop.

Q13.ow does the process of withdrawal of monsoon take place in India?

Answer: (i) Withdrawal or the retreat of monsoon is a more gradual process.

(ii) The withdrawal of the monsoon begins in the northwestern states of India, by early
September.
(iii) By mid-October, it withdraws completely from the northern half of the peninsula.
(iv) The withdrawal from the southern half of the peninsula is fairly rapid.
(v) By early December, the monsoon withdraws from the rest of the country.
Q14. State the chief characteristics of the cold weather season in India.

Answer: (i) Cold weather season takes place from December to February.
(ii) The temperature decreases from south to north.
(iii) The average temperature of the Northern Plains ranges between 10o to 50oC whereas the
average temperature of Chennai is between 24oC to 25oC.
(iv) Days are warm and nights are cold. (v) During this season, northeast trade winds prevail
over the country; they blow from the land to the sea and are dry.
(vi) Tamil Nadu coast receives rainfall, as these winds blow from the sea to the land.
(vii) The weather is marked by clear skies, low temperatures, low humidity and feeble variable
winds.

Q15. State the chief characteristics of the hot weather season in India.

Answer: (i) India experiences the hot weather season from the month of March to May. (ii) The
temperature in the northern plains of India is between 42 to 45oC and in the Deccan plateau,
between 35 to 38oC.
(iii) Towards the end of May, an elongated low pressure area develops in the region extending
from the Thar Desert to Patna and Chotanagpur plateau.
(iv) During the hot weather season, strong, gusty, hot, dry winds known as the ‘Loo’ blows.
Direct exposure to these winds may even prove to be fatal.
(v) Dust storms are very common during the month of May in northern India. These storms bring
temporary relief as they lower the temperatures.
(vi) This is also the season of localised thunderstorms associated with violent winds and
torrential rains known as Kaal Baisakhi in West Bengal.

Q16. Give a brief account of how monsoons advance into India.

Answer: (i) In early June, the low pressure conditions over the northern plains intensify. (ii)
These south-east trade winds cross the equator and blow in south- westerly direction, entering
the Indian peninsula as the south-west monsoons.
(iii) As these winds blow over warm oceans, they bring abundant moisture to the sub-continent.

(iv) These winds are strong and blow at an average velocity of 30 km per hour. (v) Early in the
season, the windward side of the Western Ghats reaches very heavy rainfall, more than 250 cm.
(vi) The maximum rainfall of this season is received in the northeastern part of the country.
Mawsynram in Khasi Hills receives the highest average rainfall in the world.
(vii) Rainfall in the Gangs valley decreases from east to the west Rajasthan and parts of Gujarat
get scanty rainfall.

Q17. What is the distribution of rainfall in India?

Answer:(i) 1 lie western coast and northeastern India receive rainfall of over about 400cm.
(ii) It is less than 60 cm in western Rajasthan and adjoining parts of Gujarat, Haryana and
Punjab.
(iii) Rainfall is equally low in tile interiors of the Dec can plateau and east of the Sahyadris. (iv)
A third area of low precipitation is around Leh in jammu and Kashmir.
(v) The rest oi the country receives model ate rainfall.
(vi) Snowfall is restricted to the Himalayan region.

Q18. Why is monsoon considered a unifying bond?

Answer: (i) The Himalayas protect the subcontinent from extremely cold winds from Central
Asia. This enables northern India to have uniformly higher temperature when compared to oilier
areas on the same latitude.
(ii) The Peninsular plateau under the influence of the sea from three sides has moderate
temperatures.
(iii) The seasonal alternation of wind systems and the associated weather conditions provides a
rhythmic cycle of seasons.
(iv) Even the uncertainties of rain and uneven distribution are very typical of the monsoon.
(v) The Indian landscape, its animals and plant life, its entire agricultural calendar and the life of
the people including their festivities revolve around this phenomenon.
(vi) These monsoon winds bind the whole country by providing water to get the agricultural
activities in motion. The river valleys which carry this water also unite as a single river valley
unit.

19. Differentiate between South West (S.W.) monsoons and North East (N.E.) monsoons.

Answer:

S.W. Monsoons N.E. Monsoons

They blow from south-west to north- east from They blow from north-east to south-west from the month
June to September. of Dec, Jan and Feb.

These are onshore humid winds because they These are offshore dry winds because they blow from
blow from sea to land. land to sea.

These are warm winds as they come from lower

They are rather cool winds because they blow.
latitudes near equator.

These warm and humid winds cause widespread These cold and dry offshore winds give no rains to India
rainfall. except Coromandel coast.

These winds are known for their vagaries or

They do not suffer from the vagaries.
uncertainties.
Q20. Why are the deltas of the Krishna, Kaveri and Godavari frequently struck by
cyclones?

Answer: (i) The low pressure conditions over north-western India, get transferred to the Bay of
Bengal by early November.
(ii) This shift is associated with the occurrence of cyclonic depressions which originate over the
Andaman Sea.
(iii) These cyclones generally cross the eastern coasts of India and cause heavy and widespread
rains.
(iv) These tropical cyclones are often very destructive.
(v) The thickly populated deltas of the Godavari, the Krishna and the Kaveri are frequently
struck by cyclones, which cause great damage to life and property.
(vi) Sometimes, these cyclones arrive at the coasts of Odisha, W. Bengal and Bangladesh. The
bulk of rainfall of the Coromandel coast is derived from depression and cyclones.