SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 13 September 2024, Shift 3 · General Awareness · Question 15 of 98

Text as printed on a candidate's response sheet for this shift; answer per SSC's tentative key as marked on that sheet. Solution last reviewed 6 September 2026.

Where this paper and its answers come from

SSC does not publish CGL question papers or a public answer key. The questions and options here are reproduced as printed on a candidate's own response sheet for this shift — the Commission's text, unchanged. Each answer is SSC's tentative key as marked on that sheet; SSC allowed challenges to it and never publishes a final key. The solutions are written by UnlockIAS.

Which is the colloquial term to describe the occurrence of pre-monsoon rains in India especially in parts of Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu?

(a)Nor Westers
(b)Kalbaisakhi
(c)Orange showers
(d)Mango showers

Answer

Why

Correct — D. Mango showers is the local name for the pre-monsoon thunderstorm rain of March to May over Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, so called because the showers help the mango crop ripen.

The same convectional storms are known as Blossom showers where they bring the coffee into flower.

The other names in the list belong to eastern India or to no recognised vocabulary at all, so the term the stem wants is option (d).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Nor Westers — Nor Westers are the violent evening thunderstorms of eastern India — West Bengal, Assam, Bihar, Odisha — that sweep in from the north-west. Wrong region for a stem naming Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
(b)
Kalbaisakhi — Kalbaisakhi is the Bengali name for those same Nor Westers, the calamity of the month of Baisakh. Same storms, same eastern belt, so it fails for the same reason.
(c)
Orange showers — Orange showers is not a name Indian geography uses for these rains. The pre-monsoon storms that open the coffee blossom are called Blossom showers.

Concept

The Indian pre-monsoon season, roughly March to May, produces local convectional storms, and each region has its own name for them.

In the south they are Mango showers, welcomed for ripening mangoes, and Blossom showers, which bring coffee into flower.

In the east they are Nor Westers, called Kalbaisakhi in West Bengal and Bardoli Chheerha in Assam — destructive to standing crops and housing, but useful for tea and jute.

The exam wants the local name, not the mechanism. All of these names sit together in the school geography chapter on climate, which is exactly why they are so easily swapped for one another.

Key facts

Mango showers are pre-monsoon rains of March to May in Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, named for their effect on the mango crop.
Blossom showers are pre-monsoon rains that trigger flowering in the coffee-growing tracts.
Nor Westers are pre-monsoon thunderstorms of eastern India, known in West Bengal as Kalbaisakhi.
In Assam the same storms are called Bardoli Chheerha.

Study next

Local names of Indian seasonal winds and rainsOnset and retreat of the south-west monsoonThe hot weather season and the Loo

Common traps

Reading only the words pre-monsoon and choosing Kalbaisakhi, which is pre-monsoon too but eastern.
Treating Nor Westers and Kalbaisakhi as two different phenomena when they are one storm under two names.

The same vocabulary is tested from the wind side: the Loo is asked on 9 Sep 2024, 12:30, GA Q.1, and again on 26 Sep 2024, 16:00, GA Q.18.

Learn every local name with its region welded to it.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.