Monsoon season in the context of "Cairns"

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⭐ Core Definition: Monsoon season

The wet season (sometimes called the rainy season or monsoon season) is the time of year when most of a region's average annual rainfall occurs. Generally, the season lasts at least one month. The term green season is also sometimes used as a euphemism by tourist authorities. Areas with wet seasons are dispersed across portions of the tropics and subtropics.

Under the Köppen climate classification, for tropical climates, a wet season month is defined as a month where average precipitation is 60 millimetres (2.4 in) or more. In contrast to areas with savanna climates and monsoon regimes, Mediterranean climates have wet winters and dry summers. Dry and rainy months are characteristic of tropical seasonal forests: in contrast to tropical rainforests, which do not have dry or wet seasons, since their rainfall is equally distributed throughout the year. Some areas with pronounced rainy seasons will see a break in rainfall mid-season, when the Intertropical Convergence Zone or monsoon trough moves to higher latitudes in the middle of the warm season.

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Monsoon season in the context of Ghaggar-Hakra River

The Ghaggar-Hakra River (IPA: [ɡʰəɡːəɾ ɦəkɾaː]) is an intermittent river in India and Pakistan that flows in force only during the monsoon season. The river is known as Ghaggar before the Ottu barrage at 29°29′15″N 74°53′33″E / 29.4875°N 74.8925°E / 29.4875; 74.8925, and as Hakra downstream of the barrage in the Thar Desert. In pre-Harappan times the Ghaggar was a tributary of the Sutlej. It is still connected to this paleochannel of the Sutlej, and possibly the Yamuna, which ended in the Nara River, presently a delta channel of the Indus River joining the sea via Sir Creek.

The Sutlej changed its course about 8,000–10,000 years ago, leaving the Ghaggar-Hakra as a system of monsoon-fed rivers terminating in the Thar Desert. The Indus Valley Civilisation prospered when the monsoons that fed the rivers diminished around 5,000 years ago, and a large number of sites from the Mature Indus Valley Civilisation (2600–1900 BCE) are found along the middle course of the (dried-up) Hakra in Pakistan. Around 4,000 years ago, the Indus Valley Civilisation declined when the monsoons further diminished, and the Ghaggar-Hakra dried up, becoming a small seasonal river.

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