The South West Monsoon Season brings the bulk of the rains to Goa every year.
The Monsoon season lasts from June 1 to September 30th.
Monsoon season 2014 started with the scary prospect of deficient rains! There was a talk everywhere of an El Nino in August - September. And to compound the problem, arrival of the rains in Goa was delayed by 5 days. From June 1 to June 30 Goa received nearly 46% deficient rains. But it was the copious rains that Goa received in July and August which turned the tide! Check these blog posts for details of June 2014 Monsoon Analysis, July 2014 Monsoon Analysis, August 2014 Monsoon Analysis
In 2014 in the final analysis, from June 1 to September 30, Goa received Area Weighted Average Rainfall of 3057.2 mm (120.36 inches) against normal of 2971.7 mm (117 inches) showing a surplus of 3%! The pattern of rain during the four months is brought out in the IMD Goa prepared daily average rainfall graph in Figure 1, the Monthly Rainfall and total Rainfall graph in Figure 2 and the cumulative rainfall graph in Figure 3 below.
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
IMD Goa maintains daily records at 13 Rain Stations across Goa. It was again Valpoi at the base of the Western Ghats in the Eastern Interior Goa which retained the title of the wettest place in Goa for 2014! Valpoi received 4111.4 mm (161.87 inches) of seasonal rains. It was closely followed like last year by Sanguem, also at the base of the Western Ghats but more to the South. Sanguem received 3950.2 mm (155.52 inches) of seasonal rainfall. Margao, Canacona and Sakhali also made it to the top 5 wettest spots. See Figure 4.
Figure 4
The rains decreased from the interior towards the coast and the Port town of Mormugao with 2460.3 mm (94.74 inches) and the Airport town of Dabolim with 2337.8 mm (92.04 inches) occupied the bottom of the table. In fact these two places were the only places which did not cross the Century of Seasonal Rainfall in inches. Rest all places crossed 100 inches of rainfall.
A graphical depiction of the seasonal rainfall in Google Earth shows the variation quite well.
Figure 5
Rainfall in September 2014 was almost entirely restricted to the first half of the month.
Vagaries Goa Rain Gauge which is located at Margao brought this out well as seen in the daily rainfall readings in Figure 6.
Figure 6
The last few days of September witnessed thunderstorms in the late afternoons associated with retreating monsoon. The thunderstorms which start in the interior from the east and proceed towards the west and the Arabian sea, brought increasing rainfall in the interior. Figure 7 shows the September 2014 rainfall pattern across Goa.
Figure 7
Margao monthly rainfall in Figure 8, is representative of the rainfall pattern this year across the state of Goa.
Figure 8
So even though the seasonal monsoon rains in 2014 were less than 2013, the fears of El Nino did not materialize and the copious rains in August were just enough to turn the deficit into a 3% surplus rainfall season for Goa!
Just for comparison Figure 9 shows the Sub-division wise average rainfall across India. Thus India as a whole showed a deficit of 12%! For a more detailed look at the performance of Monsoons in India for 2014 check this post at the weather blog www.vagaries.in.
Figure 9
Though the Monsoon season ends on September 30, the withdrawal of monsoon from Goa usually gets prolonged till mid October. And so the monsoon magic continues!
