Monsoons

(-soo nz'.) [Ar. man sim, a season.] (Meteor.) The name given to the trade winds and counter-trade winds which blow in the Indian Ocean, the former from Oct. to April, the latter from April to Oct. In the summer months the Asiatic continent is beated more than the equatorial parts of the Indian Ocean, so that, instead of air-currents towards the equator, there prevail air-currents from the equator; and precisely as the air-currents towards the equator are changed through the effects of the earth's rotation into N.E. winds, so the air-currents from the equator are changed through the same cause into S.W. winds. In a similar way, M. prevail (though not quite in so marked a degree) over those parts of the Indian Ocean which lie to the N. of Australia, N.W.counter-trade winds taking the place of the S.E. trade winds during the summer months of the S. hemisphere, that is, from Oct. to April. [s. 613]