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Every summer, southern Asia and especially India, is drenched by rain that comes from moist air masses that move in from the Indian Ocean to the south. These rains, and the air masses that bring them, are known as monsoons.
However, the term monsoon refers not only to the summer rains but to the entire cycle that consists of both summer moist onshore winds and rain from the south as well as the offshore dry winter winds that blow from the continent to the Indian Ocean.
The Arabic word for season, mawsin, is the origin of the word monsoon due to their annual appearance. Although the precise cause of the monsoons is not fully understood, no one disputes that air pressure is one of the primary factors. In the summer, a high pressure area lies over the Indian Ocean while a low exists over the Asian continent.
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