the.com/monsoon
a wind that flips direction with the seasons and feeds half the planet's dinner.
means A seasonal wind system that reverses direction between summer and winter, bringing heavy rains to large parts of South and Southeast Asia.
from From Portuguese 'monção,' which sailors borrowed from Arabic 'mawsim' — meaning 'season' or 'a fixed time' — the same word Arab traders used for the right moment to set sail. The winds kept their schedule so reliably that the season and the wind became one word, carried west along trade routes until it landed in English in the late 16th century.
- name origin
- From Arabic mawsim, meaning season
- crop lifeline
- Over a billion people depend on its rains
- wind reversal
- It literally switches direction twice yearly
- failure famine
- A weak monsoon has triggered historic famines
- not just rain
- It's the wind shift, rain is the sidekick
indian summer monsoon — brings 80% of india's annual rainfall june-september, affecting 1.4 billion people
west african monsoon — drives sahel rainfall patterns and creates lake chad fluctuations across mali, niger, chad
east asian monsoon — delivers heavy rains to china, japan, korea may-september, critical for rice cultivation