Goa's Monsoon and Climate Change

When the summer moves on to the dry months of April and May, Goa’s climate becomes unbearable. Temperatures soar, wells run dry and everyone is in a permanent bad mood until the arrival of the rains in June.

In the old days it was possible to guess which day the monsoon would break, even until the exact hour in the afternoon, the old folks say. Then everyone ran outside to enjoy the first raindrops in 9 months and to enjoy the rich smells rising up from the earth, Plants sprouted and grey inches each day and the dusty, baked red earth of Goa recovered its green contrast with the vegetation coming back to life at once.

Trouble is, that with the suicidal environmental polices of governments across the world, the weather is now quite random. The rains will still come in Goa but it’s anyone’s guess when. Sometimes now there will be mere showers in June and July and just as everyone starts panicking about their wells and rice crops, the real monsoon hits in August and September, rotting the rice stalks and completely confusing the early season tourists.

The monsoon tends to drive most of the foreign residents away but with the recent baby boom, more and more people are staying year round now and more restaurants and shops stay open to cater for them. The Goans tend to get more time to themselves and all crowd into one big room (even if they own several houses) and play cards, go fishing and generally kick back.

Life isn’t easy during monsoon though as the rains can last for hours, the roads get totally muddy and armies of frogs come to live in your house. It’s next to impossible to dry any clothes and some even buy charcoal burners just to burn up some of the moisture.

It is one of the times though that you get to see real Goan life when they haven’t got their tourist faces on.