MPSC 2025 Prelims Paper-I · Question 22 of 100

Correct — option (3), South west. The wind system that brings Maharashtra its rainy season between June and September is the south-west monsoon, the same current that floods most of peninsular and northern India with moisture in this window. It forms when the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone shifts north over the Indian subcontinent in early summer, drawing in moisture-laden air from the southern Indian Ocean; that air crosses the equator, is deflected to its right by the Coriolis force in the northern hemisphere, and arrives over the Arabian Sea and the west coast of India as a wind blowing from the south-west. For Maharashtra specifically, this arm of the monsoon — the Arabian Sea branch — strikes the Konkan coast first, typically around 10 June, and is forced upward by the near-vertical wall of the Western Ghats (the Sahyadri), producing the heaviest rainfall of the state along that coastal and windward belt, before the air descends and dries out on the leeward, rain-shadow side of the Ghats further east. The state's entire kharif agricultural calendar, and the timing of festivals and school terms alike, is built around this June-to-September south-west monsoon window, which is why the direction is such a basic and frequently tested fact in Maharashtra-focused geography papers.

• (1)South east — Not a recognised monsoon current over India. The two Indian monsoon systems are named for the direction the wind blows FROM: the south-west monsoon (June–September, the rainy season) and the north-east monsoon (October–December, the retreating or winter monsoon that brings rain chiefly to Tamil Nadu's Coromandel coast). 'South east' does not correspond to either current and is not the direction associated with Maharashtra's June–September rains.
• (2)North west — This confuses the direction of arrival with something close to its opposite. Moisture-bearing summer winds over Maharashtra blow in from the south-west, off the Arabian Sea; a north-west wind is instead associated with the dry, dusty conditions of the pre-monsoon hot-weather season (March–May) in parts of north-west and central India, not with the June–September rains this question asks about.
• (4)North east — This names the wrong monsoon. The north-east monsoon is real, but it is the winter, retreating phase that blows from October to December (chiefly November–December), driven by cold, dry continental air moving off the Asian landmass and picking up moisture only over the Bay of Bengal to water Tamil Nadu and coastal Andhra Pradesh. It is not active in June–September, and Maharashtra receives very little rainfall from it in any season.

India experiences two monsoon systems in a year, named for the direction the wind blows from: the south-west monsoon (roughly June to September) and the north-east monsoon (roughly October to December). The south-west monsoon itself splits into two branches on reaching India — the Arabian Sea branch, which strikes the west coast and is the one responsible for Maharashtra's rains, and the Bay of Bengal branch, which curves up through the north-east and sweeps west across the Indo-Gangetic plain. Maharashtra's rainfall is therefore almost entirely a south-west monsoon, Arabian Sea branch phenomenon, arriving from the sea to the state's west.

This is foundational, high-frequency-of-recall content for any Maharashtra-focused paper: the state's climate, agriculture, river systems and even its administrative calendar (monsoon session of the legislature, kharif crop cycle) are all organised around the June-to-September south-west monsoon window. MPSC uses fill-in-the-blank items like this one to test whether a candidate has genuinely internalised the direction-naming convention (wind named for where it blows FROM) rather than memorising 'monsoon = rain' without the mechanism, which is exactly what lets the north-east and north-west distractors look tempting to an unprepared candidate.

• The south-west monsoon brings rain to Maharashtra from roughly June to September, arriving via the Arabian Sea branch.
• Winds are named for the direction they blow FROM — a 'south-west' wind blows out of the south-west, towards the north-east.
• The south-west monsoon splits at the Indian coast into the Arabian Sea branch (west coast, including Maharashtra) and the Bay of Bengal branch (north-east India and the Gangetic plain).
• The north-east monsoon (October–December) is a separate, weaker, winter phenomenon that mainly waters Tamil Nadu's Coromandel coast, not Maharashtra.
• The Western Ghats (Sahyadri) force the moist south-west monsoon air upward on Maharashtra's Konkan coast, producing very heavy rainfall there and a pronounced rain-shadow belt further east.

• Naming a wind for the direction it blows TOWARDS rather than FROM — a 'south-west' monsoon blows from the south-west, not towards it
• Assuming the north-east monsoon matters for Maharashtra the way it matters for Tamil Nadu
• Treating 'monsoon' as a single undifferentiated season rather than two directionally distinct systems with different timings and target regions

MPSC frequently opens its geography section with a small number of very direct, single-fact recall items like this one — a blank to be filled with a season, a direction or a place name — before moving into statement-based and match-the-columns items. These direct questions are the ones a well-prepared candidate should never lose marks on, since they test whether foundational vocabulary (monsoon direction-naming, branch names, timing windows) has actually been fixed rather than half-remembered.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Arabian Sea branch of the south-west monsoon strikes Maharashtra's Konkan coast around which month, producing the state's heaviest rainfall along the Western Ghats ?

  • (a)March
  • (b)June
  • (c)September
  • (d)December

  Answer(b) June — the south-west monsoon typically reaches the Konkan coast around 10 June, after which the Western Ghats force the moist air upward, producing Maharashtra's heaviest rainfall along the windward, coastal belt.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which monsoon current is chiefly responsible for rainfall on Tamil Nadu's Coromandel coast between October and December, and is largely absent over Maharashtra ?

  • (a)The south-west monsoon, Arabian Sea branch
  • (b)The south-west monsoon, Bay of Bengal branch
  • (c)The north-east (retreating) monsoon
  • (d)The western disturbance

  Answer(c) The north-east (retreating) monsoon — this winter-season current picks up moisture over the Bay of Bengal and waters Tamil Nadu's east coast from October to December, after the south-west monsoon has withdrawn; Maharashtra receives very little rain from it.