Cherrapunji

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Cherrapunji is a town in the Indian state of Meghalaya with about 10,000 inhabitants, which mainly belong to the people of the Khasi. The place is one of the wettest of the earth.

Name

The original name of the city was Sohra, which was pronounced by the British " Churra " before he turned into the present. Local Sohra is still in use. Cherrapunji or Sohra is the seat of one of the seven chiefdoms of the Khasi and a traditional market town with good connections to Bengal.

Climate

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the place holds two world records:

The average annual rainfall in Cherrapunji is 11,430 mm. So the place is in third place behind Mawsynram, also. Meghalaya 16 km west of Cherrapunji, whose average is 11,873 mm, and the mountain Wai'ale'ale on the island of Kauai in Hawaii, whose average is 11,684 mm rain

Cherrapunji receives rainfall from both the south-west as the northeast monsoon, which there is only a single monsoon season. Cherrapunji is located at an altitude of 1370 m on the windward side of the Khasiberge in the branch of the SW monsoon, which occurs over the Bay of Bengal and the Ganges delta in India. The clouds rise here to the mountains to cool off and have to give from orographic reasons its moisture. This happens every year between June and September.

In the winter months the precipitation of the NO - monsoon, which comes down the valley of the Brahmaputra falls.

Amazingly, there are also rain -resistant, despite the water shortage in Cherrapunji and the inhabitants often have to walk miles to fetch drinking water. The irrigation is hindered by the excessive rains, because the upper soil layers are washed away after the forests have been destroyed by human intervention.