BharatSangraha

Goa & Gomantak · Western Coastal Strip

Terrain and eco-zones

Tropical monsoon. The first monsoon landfall on the Indian mainland arrives here in the first week of June and delivers 2,500–3,200 mm in four months, most of it in June and July. Temperatures barely move — 21–33 °C through most of the year — so the calendar is organised around rain rather than heat, and the humidity rather than the thermometer is what the year is measured by.

Landforms

Laterite plateaus, locally morod, capping the interfluves at 30–100 m and quarried for the ochre building blockKhazan lands — tidal floodplain reclaimed behind earthen bunds with timber sluice gates, farmed for paddy and fishEstuaries and the Cumbarjua canal linking the Mandovi and Zuari behind Tiswadi islandSand-dune and beach ridge from Terekhol to Galgibaga, broken by nine river mouthsSahyadri escarpment rising to Sonsogor at about 1,167 m in Sanguem

Rivers and waters

Mandovi (Mhadei) — rises in Karnataka, carries the Dudhsagar falls and opens at PanajiZuari — the deepest estuary, serving Mormugao portChapora, Terekhol, Sal, Talpona and Galgibaga — short coastal rivers, all tidal well inlandCumbarjua canal — the tidal link between the two main estuaries, and a crocodile habitat

Through the year

SeasonMonthsTypicalWhat it is like
MonsoonJune–September23–30 °CRain in sheets. Wild mushrooms called olmi appear on termite mounds and sell for extraordinary prices, the fishing fleet is under a statutory ban, and São João, Sangodd, Chikal Kalo and Patoleo all fall inside it.
Post-monsoonOctober–November24–33 °CRivers still full, fields green, and the harvest and Diwali Narkasur season. Humid but clear.
WinterDecember–February20–32 °CThe dry, mild window that carries the Feast of St Francis Xavier, Christmas, Carnival, the Shigmo approach and every wedding. Also the season the cashew orchards flower.
SummerMarch–May25–35 °CCashew apples ripen from late February; the distilleries run from March to May and the whole hinterland smells of fermenting fruit. Mango and Myndoli banana season, and the hottest, stillest part of the year.

Best time to visitNovember to February for weather, monuments and the church calendar. Late February to April if the interest is feni, Shigmo and Carnival. June to September for the landscape, the waterfalls and a Goa with almost no visitors — but the sea is closed and much of the coastal economy shuts.

The climate, landforms, rivers and seasons of Goa & Gomantak, and the best time of year to visit. (4)