BharatSangraha

Bengal Delta · Middle & Lower Gangetic Plain

Terrain and eco-zones

Tropical wet, with a monsoon that arrives in the second week of June and delivers 1,500–2,000 mm, rising towards the east. Humidity rarely drops below uncomfortable between April and October. The pre-monsoon kalbaisakhi — a short, violent north-wester of March to May — is the single most destructive routine weather event, and the post-monsoon window of October and November is the cyclone season proper.

Landforms

Deltaic alluvium, almost dead flat, falling to the sea at a few centimetres per kilometreNatural levees carrying the villages and the roads, with backswamps behind themBeels — permanent depressions in abandoned channels, fished and used for boro paddyChars — mid-channel sand and silt islands, built and destroyed within a generationMoribund distributaries in the west, carrying flow only in the monsoon

Rivers and waters

Bhagirathi–Hooghly — the western distributary, kept navigable by diversion at Farakka since 1975Jalangi and Churni — Nadia's channels, both much reducedSaraswati — the medieval trade channel past Saptagram, now a creekAdi Ganga — the Ganga's old course past Kalighat, now a canalised drainDamodar, Rupnarayan and Haldi joining the Hooghly from the westPadma, Meghna, Gorai and Madhumati carrying the live discharge east

Through the year

SeasonMonthsTypicalWhat it is like
WinterNovember–February11–27 °CDry, short and the working season for everything — weddings, weaving, date-palm tapping, nolen gur, cauliflower and the whole winter vegetable list the kitchen depends on.
Spring and kalbaisakhiMarch–May22–38 °CHot and sticky, broken by squalls that arrive in the late afternoon with hail and 80 km/h gusts. Green mango, kasundi-making and the start of the fish spawning ban.
MonsoonJune–September26–34 °CThe delta's defining season. Fields flood, jute is cut and retted, hilsa run upriver, and the ferry replaces the bus across much of the lower country.
SharatLate September–October24–33 °CClear light, kash grass in flower on the chars, and Durga Puja. Bengali writing treats this fortnight as a distinct season, and the whole festival calendar is pinned to it.

Best time to visitMid-October to February. Durga Puja falls in late September or October and is worth planning around, though Kolkata is effectively impassable for four days. Nabadwip and Santipur are best at Ras in November; Murshidabad is best in December and January when the light is low and the crowds are gone.

The climate, landforms, rivers and seasons of Bengal Delta, and the best time of year to visit. (4)