The Wind That

Brings the Rain

In the Indian city of Cherrapunji

there is a sign saying THE

WETTEST PLACE ON PLANET

EARTH

There are places in the world that think theyre

even wetter but its safe to say that Cherrapunji

is a wet place On average 11 meters of rain

fall there every year Thats enough to give a

diplodocus a dunking Compare it to Chicago

where there are around 90 centimeters of

rainfall a year or even rainy Vancouver which

gets roughly 130 centimeters But its not

always wet in Cherrapunji In December and

January a couple of centimeters fall at most

while in the summer it pours and pours The

month of July 1861 even made it into the

Guinness Book of Records A total of 93 meters

of rain fellin a single month

The big differences in rainfall are because of

the monsoon that blows in India and southeast

Asia The monsoon is a wind that f irst blows

one way for six months and then reverses and

goes the other way This has to do with the

temperature differences between land and

sea When the wind comes off the land the

air is very dry When the wind blows from the

sea it brings a huge amount of water with it

Global warming is making these differences

even larger And the monsoon is becoming

more diff icult to predict Sometimes it can be

very dry and sometimes very wet Sometimes

the monsoon is much too early and sometimes

much too late

That has serious consequences for the

inhabitants of this region There are easily a

billion of them Many of these people depend

on the monsoon Farmers need the rain to

grow rice and other crops If the harvest fails

they dont make any money and theres a risk

of famine But if too much rain falls the rivers

f lood Youve probably seen the pictures the

tops of palm trees poking out of the water

houses collapsing into rivers with a crash fully

loaded scooters driving through the brown

water Its all the fault of the monsoon But the

local people cant live without it You should see

what happens when the monsoon is late

In New Delhi the temperature goes up to 45

degrees At night its at most a few degrees

cooler The 20 million inhabitants long for cool

air Their fans and airconditioning are no good

to them because the electricity keeps failing

In dozens of cities people are threatening

employees of the electricity companies

Theyre furious that theres no electricity when

they really need it But thats no coincidence

If everyone turns the airconditioning all the

way up the power stations have to work at full

power Water is needed for

that too Cooling water for the coalf ired power

stations And lots of water for the hydroelectric

power stations But if the monsoon doesnt

show up the reservoirs will be empty

Then almost two weeks later than usual the

rain f inally arrives The children dance in the

streets The dust disappears from the air The

temperature drops from hot to warm A sigh of

relief passes through the city But along with

the water come the mosquitos And mosquitos

bring nasty diseases

Marc ter Horst

Published in Palm

Trees at the North Pole

published by Greystone

Books Canada Originally

published in Dutch in

2018 as Palmen op

de Noordpool by JH

GottmerHJW Becht

bv text © Marc ter

Horst illustrations ©

Wendy Panders English

translation rights© Laura

Watkinson