DEATH. AND taxes. And the south-west monsoon. Had Benjamin Franklin, the most peripatetic of America’s founding fathers, ever ventured east of Europe he might have added India’s rainy season to his famous dyad of life’s certainties.(倘若本杰明·富兰克林曾踏足欧洲以东，他或许会把印度的雨季加入他关于人生确定性的名言之中。) For the 150-odd years(一百五十多年) that India has been collecting data the monsoon has hit the peninsula in early June, dumped roughly similar amounts of water over India and started retreating in late September.
死亡。还有税收。还有西南季风。倘若本杰明·富兰克林——美国开国元勋中最见多识广的一位——曾踏足欧洲以东，他或许会把印度的雨季加入他那句关于人生确定性的名言之中。在印度收集数据的一百五十多年里，季风总是在六月初登陆次大陆，为印度带来大致相当的水量，并在九月底开始退去。
It did much the same thing before modern humans started measuring it, too. For centuries the rains have dependably(可靠地，稳定地) watered the fields, offering mostly stable harvests to premodern societies. Ancient trade routes worked to its rhythms(节奏，规律). The monsoon allowed Gujarati merchants on India’s west coast to sail out to Arabia and east Africa on the back of(凭借，依靠) its winds and to return home when the pattern reversed.
在现代人类开始测量之前，季风的表现也大致如此。几个世纪以来，雨水可靠地浇灌着田野，为前现代社会带来大体稳定的收成。古代贸易路线也顺应着季风的节奏。季风使得印度西海岸的古吉拉特商人能够乘着季风航行至阿拉伯和东非，并在风向逆转时返回家园。
In April India’s meteorological(气象的) department issued its forecast for this year’s season. It predicted a weak monsoon at 92% of the “long-period average” of 1971-2020—below normal though not deficient. In the past that would have prompted hand-wringing(焦虑不安，束手无策) about the effect on food production and prices of staples. But irrigation now covers more than half the country’s farm area, and a few points are not the make-or-break(成败攸关的) variation they used to be. It is instead how the season’s rainfall is distributed that keeps forecasters up at night.(真正让预报员夜不能寐的，是季风雨量的分布方式。) The monsoon is getting weirder.
今年四月，印度气象部门发布了本季季风的预报。预计季风偏弱，降雨量仅为1971-2020年“长期平均值”的92%——低于正常水平，但尚不算不足。在过去，这会引起人们对粮食生产和主食价格的担忧。但如今灌溉已覆盖全国一半以上的农田，几个百分点的偏差不再是过去那种决定成败的变化。真正让预报员夜不能寐的，是季风雨量的分布方式。季风正变得愈发反常。