Climate / weather

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 tropicalmaritime, 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 win-ter and summer months the former being from January to
February and the hot weather being from March to May. The south-west monsoon gener-ally hits
Goa in early June and carries on till around September.The monsoon bursts over Goa in early June
and by the end of Septem-ber/early October it withdraws: dur-ing 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 tem-perature in Goa are minimal. The month of May is perhaps Goa's hot-test month
when the temperature is around 30c while the "cool" month of January touches temperature lows
around 20c. 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 tempera-tures: the 'cold weather' months, this
time, are true to expectations might temperatures generally hovers around 20c in Jan. /Feb.

Humidity:
With a proximity to the Arabian Sea and with so many rivers and lakes, humidity in Goa is rela-tively
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 for-mation. These heavy clouds
are part of the monsoon and, consequently, when the monsoon starts to recede, cloudiness
decreases.

Winds
During October to April, the morn-ing 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 through-out the day; and, during the monsoon, wind speeds are fairly strong but, during
the rest of the year, winds are of moderate strength.

Climate
Dudhsagar Falls on the Goa-Karnataka border.

Goa features a tropical monsoon climate under the Kppen climate classification. Goa, being in the
tropical zone and near the Arabian Sea, has a hot and humid climate for most of the year. The month
of May is the hottest, seeing day temperatures of over 35 C (95 F) coupled with high humidity. The
monsoon rains arrive by early June and provide a much needed respite from the heat. Most of Goa's
annual rainfall is received through the monsoons which last till late September.

Goa has a short winter season between mid-December and February. These months are marked by
nights of around 21 C (70 F) and days of around 28 C (82 F) with moderate amounts of humidity.
Further inland, due to altitudinal gradation, the nights are a few degrees cooler.