24 C. Little — On tivo remarkable rain-bursts in Bengal. [No. 2, 



On two remarkable rain-bursts in Bengal ; and some of the more prominent 

 features of the monsoon season in Northern India in 1902. — By 

 0. Little. 



[Received 18th March 1903. Read 1st April 1903.] 



Part I. 



The south-west monsoon is a subject of enduring interest to many, 

 not only to those who are continuous residents in the plains of India, or 

 to those who are interested in raw products, but to all professional meteo- 

 rologists, and to many other scientific men, whose work dovetails in with 

 meteorological investigations. I make no claim to belong to any of these 

 classes except the first, but my official duty as storm-warning officer for 

 ports in the Bay of Bengal, has made it necessary for me to try and 

 follow others in their advances in the direction of explaining complicat- 

 ed atmospheric changes. Any attempt by me to go beyond the role of 

 follower has been either with the purpose of educating myself or merely 

 as a pastime, and in either case it is not likely that it will be much, or 

 any advantage to others to know what I have been studying, or what 

 conclusions I have come to. 



In my position of follower I have one strong belief which is, of course, 

 a not uncommon belief, and it is that much of the weather in Northern 

 India during the monsoon season depends on storms, which develop in 

 the Bay of Bengal, or to be on the safe side, which enter India from the 

 Bay. I have another belief which may not be so common, viz., that, in 

 one important respect intimately connected with the character of the 

 monsoon, the behaviour of these storms is as yet a mystery. My main 

 object in offering this brief paper for publication is that, by showing my 

 ignorance others may be induced to supply the necessary information, 

 or that if that information is not available, the collection of meteorological 

 statistics may be more specially directed so as to meet a most important 

 demand. 



The difficulty I have felt is, how to account for the line of advance 

 of storms (the word here meaning any cyclonic disturbance, slight or 

 severe), while moving over the Bay, or the part of the country, which 

 they may devastate or enrich. The past few years appear to me to 

 have cast into strong relief the importance of having this matter placed, 

 if possible, beyond question, so that the direction of advance may not 

 only be accountable for after the event, but may be capable of exact 

 forecast several days before. The importance of what is called the recurv- 

 ing of cyclonic storms was shown in 1899, when not a single depression 

 entered India from the Bay but recurved over Central India, and as 



