Climate in Goa

Cimate in Goa

The State of Goa is within the tropics. To its west it has the Arabian Sea while, in the east, are the Sahyadris (Western Ghats) where the average height is in the range of l km. This State has a tropical-maritime, mon - soonish climate. Being close to the Arabian Sea and generally having spells of good monsoon (south-west), the climate is on the pleasant side, although it could become somewhat uncomfortable, in the absence of winds, during pre and post monsoon months. Also, Goa really has no line of demarcation between the win­ter and summer months the former being from January to February and the hot weather being from March to May. The south-west monsoon gener­ally hits Goa in early June and carries on till around September.

The monsoon bursts over Goa in early June and by the end of Septem­ber/early October it withdraws: dur­ing its tenure over Goa, the monsoon gives rise to annual rainfall in the vicinity of 350 cm. However, towards the Western Ghats, the rainfall tends to be a little more and is around 400 cm annually. From available records, some parts of Goa have had extensive rainfall e.g. Colem had rainfall of 563.0 mm on the 24th August 1934.

Temperature:
Variations in tem­perature in Goa are minimal. The month of May is perhaps Goa's hot­test month when the temperature is around 30°c while the "cool" month of January touches temperature lows around 20°c. However, oddly enough, the day temperatures touch the lowest during the monsoon months of July and August and not in the "cold weather" months of January and February. This, however, is not the case when one considers night tempera­tures: the 'cold weather' months, this time, are true to expectations might temperatures generally hovers around 20°c in Jan. /Feb.

Humidity:
With a proximity to the Arabian Sea and with so many rivers and lakes, humidity in Goa is rela­tively high; mainly around 60%.

Clouds:
The months of November to March give Goa lightly clouded skies but prior to the onslaught of the monsoon, the skies are overcast and increase, sharply, in their cloud for­mation. These heavy clouds are part of the monsoon and, consequently, when the monsoon starts to recede, cloudiness decreases.

Winds
During October to April, the morn­ing winds are easterly to northeasterly; and in May the winds are north to north-east. However, as could be expected, during the monsoon, the winds generally are westerly through­out the day; and, during the monsoon, wind speeds are fairly strong but, during the rest of the year, winds are of moderate strength.