Climate of India

The climate of India includes a wide range of weather conditions, influenced by its vast geographic scale and varied topography. Based on the Köppen system, India encompasses a diverse array of climatic subtypes. These range from arid and semi-arid regions in the west to highland, sub-arctic, tundra, and ice cap climates in the northern Himalayan regions, varying with elevation.

Quotes about Climate of India

• It would be impossible to convey to any one who has never been in the tropical climate the beauty, the luxury of such a scene; at such an hour, the air becomes so pure and balmy, the atmosphere so highly rarefied, the moon and stars shine with a brilliance unknown in our hemisphere. The most slender leaf seen between you and the deep blue sky is accurately defined; the waving boughs of the coca [coconut?] that seem at intervals to stir from some internal impulse are so beautifully contrasted with the thick foliage of the mango, glossy as the holly tree. The hum of grasshoppers is ceaseless, and the banyan trees are white with doves whose soft note is perpetually heard. The glorious sun is now above the horizon…it is difficult to describe such a morning in downright prose, unless it were that of Walter Scott’s novels…
  • The tropical Indian climate, Bessie Fenton. Quoted in Jain, Meenakshi (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts

• I sat down to give you an account of the weather and climate, which insensibly led me to the consequences of it: every thing but cold is in extremes here, the heat is intense, the rains floods, the winds hurricanes, and the hailstones I dare not tell you how large, lest you should think I have the licence of a traveller. But what I always hold with reverence and awe and at the same time with pleasure, is the lightning; not an evening passes without it; it is not that offensive glare of light I have been used to see, but a beautiful fire, which plays amongst the clouds, and passes from one part of the heavens to another in every direction, and in every variety of vibration.
  • A North-wester in Calcutta, Nathaniel Kindersley
  • Quoted in Jain, Meenakshi (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts