#monsoons

[desert-love]

[sitting-on-me-bum]

Warm, wet afternoons during the monsoons are a good time to rest, stretch and sharpen your claws (if you're a leopard). Aditi lives at our Manikdoh Leopard Rescue Centre.

This photo was taken by Wildlife SOS staff photographer/videographer Akash Dolas.

[sesamecd]

Without you

Brittle

Grey and brown

[vox-anglosphere]

Our thoughts are with India during this environmental catastrophe

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Inside Climate News:

Record breaking torrential downpours killed at least 14 people, inundated roads, caused long power outages and brought Pakistan’s largest metropolis to a standstill twice last month.

Earlier in July, the Indian central government declared flooding in the northeastern state of Assam a “severe natural calamity,” affecting 10,000 people, as torrential rains killed 14 in the state of Gujarat and 16 more died after a flash flood in the Amarnath region.

But the worst hit so far has been Bangladesh, where more than 7.2 million people have been severely affected by the worst floods in the country in over a century, which experts say were worsened by climate change.

In late May, more than 10 villages in Bangladesh’s Sylhet and Sunamganj districts flooded after heavy rainfall upstream in northeast India’s Meghalaya region. By May 18, local news reported that road connections in the area had disintegrated, leaving more than 200,000 people stranded. Currently, around 20,000 people are living in more than 275 shelters across the region, according to the United Nations.

Floods caused by heavy rainfall in India and Bangladesh’s northeastern region are not uncommon, but the 2022 monsoons were unprecedented and uncharacteristic.

The Indian monsoon, one of the most prominent monsoon systems in the world, which affects India and parts of Bangladesh, develops through a series of complex events that involve changing wind patterns in the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal. Every year in early June, winds from the Arabian Sea push rainclouds over the southern coasts of India, marking the beginning of the summer monsoon that lasts until September and brings the Indian subcontinent more than 70 percent of its annual rainfall.

As the monsoon develops over India’s southwestern region, winds from the east push rain clouds over the Indo-Gangetic Plain, land comprising the floodplains of the Indus and the Ganga-Brahmaputra rivers and stretching across northern and eastern India, eastern Pakistan, Bangladesh and southern Nepal.

But this year wind systems that have historically occurred during different periods in the monsoon season coincided to push rain clouds over the northeastern region of India. According to a recent study by Roxy Koll, lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment and a climate scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, monsoon winds over the Arabian Sea are exhibiting fluctuating behaviors, “driving surges of moisture supply, leading to extreme rain episodes across the entire central Indian belt.”

[jesyme]

Monsoon Clouds. Southeastern Arizona. July 2022. Photography by j.e.syme

[lostinthesandsoftime]

This is one of the best Doon walks. It takes you through some of the prettiest woods 🌳

[notwiselybuttoowell]

In flood-stricken Pakistan, where an unprecedented monsoon season has killed hundreds of people, the rains now threaten a famed archaeological site dating back 4,500 years.

The ruins of Mohenjo-daro, located in southern Sindh province near the Indus River, and a Unesco world heritage site, are considered among the best preserved urban settlements in south Asia. They were discovered in 1922, and mystery still surrounds the disappearance of its civilisation, which coincided with those of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia.

The recent flooding has not directly hit Mohenjo-daro but the record-breaking rains have inflicted damage on the ruins, said Ahsan Abbasi, the site’s curator. “Several big walls which were built nearly 5,000 years ago have collapsed because of the monsoon rains,” Abbasi said.

He said dozens of construction workers under the supervision of archaeologists had started the repair work. Abbasi did not give an estimated cost of the damage.

The site’s landmark “Buddhist stupa”, a large hemispherical structure associated with worship, meditation and burial, remains intact, Abbasi said. But the downpours have damaged some outer walls and also some larger walls separating individual rooms or chambers.

Abbasi said the civilisation at Mohenjo-daro, also known as “Mound of the Dead” in the local Sindhi language, built an elaborate drainage system, which had been critical in flooding in the past.

[gemrose]

August afternoon

in the courtyard

rain clouds

come and go

~ Meeta Ahluwalia

[eyesareserene]

A Beautiful Mess

While I was through the fields of those muddy roads, I saw this pink and lilac flower, it took me quiet some time but when it did hit me, I realized the damage it really was. All this time, it's been there in just a very subtle way and it stands out with such beauty and charisma. Rain lilies are these really attractive flowers which bloom during the monsoons, but lowkey are poisonous. This monsoon, what got me thinking is the loop of the cycle of this season. Every July, I'm in the hope to sit through the heavy rains and thunders with just my coffee and lofi beats. This time around, the global warming pushed the onset of monsoon. This time it was different. I didn't like the wind, the thunder and not even the blue tones of the sky. I perceive monsoon as a dependent individual under the control of external factors. It is bound to make peoples lives happier and bring joy, or it inclines to bring destruction. I don't want to be monsoon, it's a weakness which would cut me off my knees. I don't want to be those lilies, appearing dangerously serene, yet being the most vulnerable (to be plucked out). What I truly want is the possibility of adapting to the thunders which come along. To pull out all those weeds which take me from myself.

[ronak-kamat]

Onset of monsoons.

[desert-love]

[dammitanvi]

there's something about the monsoons and lorde that breaks me down into pieces

[jiyasomai]

6:07 AM

i could hear

sound of heavy showers out of my window

but the sound of my heart pounding louder

thought of enjoying some music and feel the rain

but the song took me to a place i can't explain

noticed brightness slowly appearing in the sky

a crack of dawn for the first time in a long time

not because I woke up to it

but instead i was sleepless

eventually, lighting strikes tearing the sky apart

noises of loud wailing from the clouds hitting my ears

as if they're in pain

crying their heart out. - Jiya Somai

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from the New York Times:

Monsoonal rains and thunderstorms overtook Las Vegas on Thursday evening for the second night in a row, causing flash flooding that turned parts of the Strip into rivers.

Up to an inch of rain fell on the city in about two hours — about half the rainfall for the year in the area that had been suffering a drought, said Andy Gorelow, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Nevada. Winds reached up to 71 miles per hour in the Las Vegas Valley, almost the speed of a Category 1 hurricane.

Videos on social media showed casinos flooding and cars getting stuck on roads.About 7,600 people were left without power Thursday evening after the thunderstorm, according to local reports.