Annual rainfall of India
Topic: Climate of India and the Monsoon · NCERT: Class 11, Ch 4 "Climate"
Meaning
India's average yearly rainfall is about 125 cm, but it varies greatly from place to place. About half of India gets less than 75 cm. The heaviest rain falls where moist monsoon winds hit mountains. The least falls in the far west and in the lee of the hills (the sheltered side, away from the wind). Rainfall is grouped into four zones:
- High (over 200 cm): the west coast, Western Ghats, sub-Himalayan North-East and Meghalaya
- Medium (100-200 cm): south Gujarat, east Tamil Nadu, Odisha, Jharkhand, Bihar, east Madhya Pradesh and the northern Ganga plain
- Low (50-100 cm): west Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, east Rajasthan, Gujarat and the Deccan
- Inadequate (under 50 cm): most of west Rajasthan, Ladakh, and parts of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra
Example
Parts of the Khasi-Jaintia hills in Meghalaya get more than 1,000 cm a year. Jaisalmer in western Rajasthan gets under 9 cm. The 100 cm isohyet (a line on a map joining places with equal rainfall) roughly separates India's rice lands from its wheat lands.
Don't confuse with
- Variability of rainfall: how much the rain changes from year to year at one place. It is over 50% in the Thar and under 25% on the west coast. Annual rainfall is the amount that falls.