…The sky seems to be breaking through. Through swirling clouds, covering everything to the very horizon, continuous streams of water pour. The rain is not like from a bucket, but like from thousands of buckets, it hits the roofs and crowns of trees. Because of the jets of water, visibility is no more than a dozen meters. From time to time, the twilight is illuminated by bright flashes of lightning, thunder shakes everything around … It's hard to imagine that such weather can last for several weeks.
This is a menacing phenomenon - monsoon rain. Dangerous and at the same time beautiful, as it has become the basis of the life of the population of many countries. In the countries of South and Southeast Asia, the onset of monsoon rains is expected with hope and anxiety. The delay of the wet season causes drought. Too much rain leads to floods. Both are fraught with adverse consequences.
How do monsoon rains form?
Monsoon is a type of wind that acts on the border of the ocean and a large land mass. Their main feature is seasonality, that is, they change direction depending on the season. Due to varying degrees of heating and cooling of the continents and surrounding waters, areas withdifferent atmospheric pressure. The baric gradient is the cause of the wind blowing from the ocean to the land in summer, and vice versa in winter. The summer monsoon moves in from the sea and brings humid air. Clouds from these water-vapor-laden oceanic air masses are the source of the monsoon rains.
Monsoon countries
Most of all, the effect of monsoons is manifested in the climate of South Asian countries: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka. For the first time, Europeans learned about these winds from Arab travelers. Therefore, the Arabic word "mausim", meaning "season", has somewhat changed in French, and became the name for the monsoons.
Damp winds that bring precipitation from the ocean in the summer are typical of both East and Southeast Asia. China, Cambodia, Vietnam and other countries also owe their agricultural development to monsoon rains.
The North American monsoon operating in the eastern United States is also highlighted. In Russia, the effect of seasonal winds is clearly manifested in the south of the Far East.
Monsoon rain is a long-awaited event
Inhabitants of countries with a monsoon climate always await the arrival of summer rains with trepidation, because the start of agricultural work depends on their timely onset. Soils dried up during the dry period are saturated with moisture again. Water supplies are replenished in rivers and lakes, large volumes are accumulated in reservoirs. This precious moisture is then used during the dry season for irrigation.fields.
The monsoon rainy season begins with joy and jubilation over the long-awaited freshness, the decline in the heat, which lasted several months. Bright greens appear, many plants begin to bloom. This is the heyday of nature. The main thing is that the monsoon season starts on time. Then there are usually no unpleasant surprises.
Rain is not only good
The monsoon rain that started in time is the hope for a good harvest. But often the amount of precipitation exceeds all norms. The result is that a happy event turns into a natural disaster.
In September 2014, there was a lot of writing about the floods in India and Pakistan. A somewhat late wet season marked the incessant monsoon rains for several days, which provoked powerful floods. The Ganges River and its tributaries overflowed their banks, flooding the surrounding area along with hundreds of villages. The death toll has reached several hundred.
Loose rocks saturated with water began to move down the slopes of hills and mountains not fixed by forest. The result was hundreds of large and small landslides, exacerbating the scale of the disaster. Washed out and flooded roads made it difficult for rescuers to arrive and evacuate people from dangerous areas.
Causes of catastrophic consequences
Of course, the monsoon rain of great intensity led to such adverse effects. But there are several other reasons that are not directly related to precipitation. The first of these is thatmost of the population of these countries lives in the floodplains of large rivers, where soils are more fertile and where it is easier to irrigate fields in drought.
The second reason is the deforestation of the slopes of the Himalayas, the foothills and the steep slopes of the Deccan Plateau. The loose layer of plant litter under the forests absorbs a lot of moisture that seeps through it and replenishes groundwater. In addition, tree roots hold soil particles together, preventing them from being drawn downhill as part of landslide masses or mudflows.
The conclusion seems to be simple: stop deforestation on the slopes of the mountains and take measures to restore the vegetation cover. But in countries where most rural residents can only use wood as fuel for cooking and heating during the cold season, a ban on felling trees will create new problems.
Monsoons in the Russian Far East
Monsoons are characteristic of the southern part of the Pacific coast of Russia. Here, winters are dry and frosty, and summers are most often cloudy and rainy. Humid air masses coming from the Sea of Japan and the Sea of Okhotsk bring a large amount of precipitation. The monsoon rainy season in the Primorsky and Khabarovsk Territories occurs at the end of summer and the beginning of autumn. Therefore, the rivers here do not overflow in the spring, as in the middle lane, but in August-September.
2013 became a very difficult year for the Far Eastern regions of Russia due to catastrophic flooding on the Amur River and its tributaries. The flood caused enormous damage to the economy and the population.
To solve the problem, various measures are proposed, the main of which are the regulation of river flow through the construction of reservoirs and the protection of settlements with flood control dams. It is also necessary to relocate people from the most dangerous areas to non-flood areas.
Monsoon rains are a source of much-needed moisture in different parts of the globe. This is also a formidable natural phenomenon, which can be very dangerous. But the beneficial qualities of the monsoons are much more important for people, especially those involved in tropical agriculture.
