A monsoonal storm approaches White Sands National Park in New Mexico.
From North America to the Amazon, from Sri Lanka and Northern Australia, the monsoon rains are an eagerly awaited event in many parts of the world. Here are some stormy photos of this extraordinary weather phenomenon, and the stories of the landscapes within them.
The sand grains at White Sands National Park are made from translucent gypsum. Wind movement rubs sand grains against each other, scratching them so that they appear white. The North American monsoon is often called the Desert Monsoon, as a large part of the affected area is arid or semi-arid. However, with the seasonal rains come many wildflowers can only bloom thanks to the annual downpour.
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Dark storm clouds contrast dramatically with these red cliffs of New Mexico.
The Southwestern Monsoon of North America normally hits around the beginning of July, bringing about half the region's annual rainfall with it. New Mexico and Arizona are hit by wild winds and thunderstorms, with lighting strikes being common. The monsoon here is widely variable, both in its timings and the amount of precipitation, and is believed to be greatly affected by the El Nino/El Nina climate patterns.
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Lighting crashes from purple clouds above Tucson, Arizona.
During the monsoon here, air currents bring moisture from the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, drastically changing the normally dry conditions of the region. Incidentally, 'monsoon' is a seasonal term like 'summer' or 'winter' and should be used the same way. Therefore, it is correct to say 'the monsoon thunderstorms are coming' rather than 'the monsoon is coming.' Also a monsoon technically includes a dry as well as a wet period, although it's generally only the latter that people refer to as a monsoon.
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Banks of dark grey clouds build up around Malaysia's most famous urban landmark, the Petronas Towers.
Malaysia experiences two monsoons of differing intensity: the Southwest Monsoon from late May to September and the heavier Northwest Monsoon from November to March. The capital city, Kuala Lumpur, does not suffer too greatly from waterlogging during the rainy season but along the eastern coast, flooding is an annual event.
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No matter how heavy the rain, life in monsoonal cities such as Saigon in Vietnam must go on. Unlike Malaysia, Vietnam experiences only one monsoon each year but it's an intense one, with up to 1000 mm of rainfall in most areas and up to 2500 mm in the sea-facing hills. Some regions are even subject to typhoons coming down from the South China Sea. Despite the destruction they sometimes bring, agriculture, particularly rice farming, could not survive without the annual rains.
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Zanzibar is another of the regions to have two rainy seasons, a longer one (called Masika) from March to May, followed by more sporadic rainfall between October and December (called Vuli). The East African monsoons are really only part of the South Asian monsoon system, and the amount and duration of the rainfall can vary wildly. The West African monsoon, which brings much-needed rain to the Sudan and Sahel regions, is an entirely different system to the one experienced in the east.
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The people of monsoonal countries get used to doing things in a downpour, like this friendly soccer match in Brazil. After all, there's only so much time you can spend indoors listening to the rain! Fortunately, most countries with a rainy season are quite warm so there's little danger of illness or hypothermia. The South American monsoon may be smaller than that of other continents, but it's still an important part of agriculture and ecology.
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Scientists puzzled for many years about the South American monsoon, which covers a large area including the Amazon river basin. Although they knew that monsoons are caused by the reversal of the wind direction from land to ocean, they were unclear how this happens in South America. In other monsoonal regions, the storm clouds are brought on by low air pressure over hot landmasses, but in the Amazon rainforest, no such heated landmass exists. Recent research has come to the conclusion that the forest itself brings on the first thunderstorms that trigger the wet season, through trans-evaporation from millions of leaves. Another reason the Amazon jungle is so important!
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One of the happy side-effects of heavy monsoonal clouds – stunning sunsets! For the last 300 years, scientists have understood monsoons as the movement of air currents between warm landmasses and the cooler ocean. However, recently scientists have begun to explore other theories, including the possibility that monsoons are caused not by different temperatures but by the interaction of tropical air circulation and turbulent air currents in middle latitudes. Research into the exact conditions that bring about monsoons continue.
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