Monsoon rain - salvation or death?

... The sky seems to break. Through the swirling clouds, which have covered everything up to the horizon, they pour out continuous streams of water. The rain is not from a bucket, but from thousands of buckets, it hits the roofs and crowns of trees. Due to water jets visibility is not more than a dozen meters. From time to time the twilight is illuminated by bright flashes of lightning, the thunder shakes everything around ... It is hard to imagine that this kind of weather can last several weeks.

This is a formidable phenomenon - a monsoon rain. Dangerous and at the same time beautiful, as it became the basis of the life of the population of many countries. In the countries of South and South-East Asia, monsoon rains are awaited with hope and anxiety. The delay of a wet season causes a drought. And too intense rains lead to floods. Both are fraught with unfavorable consequences.

How is monsoon rain formed?

The monsoon is a kind of winds acting on the border of the ocean and a large massif of land. Their main feature is seasonality, that is, they change direction depending on the season. Because of the different degree of heating and cooling of continents and surrounding waters, regions with different atmospheric pressures are formed. The pressure gradient is the cause of the wind blowing in the summer from the ocean to the land, and in winter - on the contrary. The summer monsoon moves from the sea side and brings moist air. Clouds that arise from these ocean-saturated oceanic air masses become a source of monsoon rains.

Countries with monsoon climate

The strongest effect of monsoon is manifested in the climate of South Asian countries: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka. The Europeans learned about these winds for the first time from Arab travelers. Therefore, the Arabic word "mausim", meaning "season", somewhat modified in French, became the name for monsoons.

Wet winds, which bring precipitation from the ocean in the summer, are typical for both East and South-East Asia. China, Cambodia, Vietnam and other countries the development of agriculture is also due to monsoon rains.

A North American monsoon is also operating in the eastern part of the United States. In Russia the effect of seasonal winds is clearly manifested in the south of the Far East.

Monsoon rain is a long-awaited event

Residents of countries with a monsoonal climate always with awe await the arrival of summer rains, because it is from their timely offensive that the beginning of agricultural work also depends. Soils, dried up during the dry period, are saturated again with moisture. Reserves of water in rivers and lakes are replenished, large volumes in reservoirs accumulate. This precious moisture is then used in the dry season to irrigate the fields.

The season of monsoon rains begins with joy and rejoicing over the long-awaited freshness, the heat recession lasting several months. Appears bright green, many plants start to bloom. This is the time of the heyday of nature. The main thing is that the monsoon season starts on time. Then usually does without unpleasant surprises.

Rains are not only good

In time, the beginning of the monsoon rain is a hope for a good harvest. But often the amount of precipitation exceeds all standards. The result is that a joyous event turns into a natural disaster.

In September 2014, they wrote a lot about the floods in India and Pakistan. A few belated wet season marked monsoon rains that continued for several days, which provoked powerful floods. The Ganges River and its tributaries emerged from the shores, flooding the surrounding countryside with hundreds of villages. The number of victims reached several hundred.

Saturated with water, loose rocks began to move down the slopes of the hills and mountains that were not fixed by the forest. The result was hundreds of large and small landslides, aggravating the scale of the disaster. Blurred and flooded roads made it difficult for rescuers to arrive and evacuate people from dangerous areas.

Causes of catastrophic consequences

Of course, a monsoon rain of high intensity led to such adverse consequences. But there are several more reasons, directly with precipitation unrelated. The first is that most of the population of these countries lives in floodplains of large rivers, where there are more fertile soils and where it is easier to provide irrigation of fields in a drought.

The second reason is deforestation of the slopes of the Himalayas, foothills and steep slopes of the Dean plateau. The friable layer of vegetative litter under the forests absorbs a lot of moisture that seeps through it and replenishes the reserves of groundwater. In addition, the roots of trees bind the soil particles, not allowing them to be involved in the movement down the slope in the composition of landslide masses or mudflows.

The conclusion is simple: stop deforestation on the mountain slopes and take measures to restore the vegetation cover. But in countries where the majority of rural residents can use only firewood as fuel for cooking and heating their homes during the cold season, the ban on tree felling will cause new problems.

Monsoon in the Russian Far East

Monsoon is typical for the southern part of the Pacific coast of Russia. Here, dry and frosty winters, and summers are often overcast and rainy. Wet air masses coming from the Sea of Japan and the Sea of Okhotsk bring a lot of precipitation. The season of monsoon rains in Primorsky and Khabarovsk Krai falls at the end of summer and the beginning of autumn. Therefore, the rivers flow here not in spring, as in the middle belt, but in August-September.

2013 has become very difficult for the Far Eastern regions of Russia due to the catastrophic floods on the Amur River and its tributaries. The flood caused great damage to the economy and the population.

To solve the problem, various measures are proposed, the most important of which are the regulation of river flow through the construction of reservoirs and the protection of populated areas by flood control dams. It is also necessary to move people from the most dangerous areas to unheated areas.

Monsoon rains are the source of much-needed moisture in various parts of the world. This is also a formidable natural phenomenon, which can be very dangerous. But the useful qualities of monsoons are much more important for people, especially those engaged in tropical farming.