28 C. Little — On two remarkable rain-bursts in Bengal. [No. 2 



Review for June, 1902, issued by the Meteorological Reporter to the 

 Government of India, and Director-General of Indian Observatories, 

 and suggested by the discussion of the atmospheric conditions in June in 

 Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and the adjoining seas, the following 

 occur : — 



(I) "That conditions in India may be sometimes largely condi- 

 tioned by actions taking place in the Central Asian areas, and that 

 occasionally these actions extend over the greater part of Europe and 

 Asia." 



(3) " That these actions are largely modified by the barrier of the 

 Himalayas and seem to spread more readily southwards through the 

 gaps in the range." 



These conclusions may I think be interpreted, as giving general 

 support to my assumption that it is possible for a storm to cross the 

 Himalayas into India from Thibet ; but as regards my statement, that 

 the depression moved towards India from a north-easterly direction, 

 the Monthly Weather Review takes up an entirely different position. 

 Discussing the changes of the 28th June it is there stated that 

 "Large and important changes occurred on this day " and subsequently 

 " It hence seems probable that the main centre of the action was near 

 Gilgit, and that it extended almost up to Lake Balkash on the north, to 

 Chitral on the west (where pressure was steady) and on the south over 

 the greater part of India. It is impossible to further define the scope 

 of the action for no data are available for the regions to the east of 

 Gilgit. The fact, however, that the fall in Upper Assam was only 

 moderate seems to indicate that the action did not extend far eastwards 

 into Thibet." 



What the comparatively small readings on that date in Assam 

 appear to me to indicate is, that the wave of change had passed rapidly 

 over Thibet, that the 8 a.m. pressure readings on the 28th in the north- 

 east included some part of the recovery which had, by that time, com- 

 menced in the east ; and that it had not reached the neighbourhood of 

 Gilgit, etc. The great rapidity with which that change of pressure 

 occurred is shown by the almost uniform fall over India, as given by 

 the pressure readings at 8 a.m. of the 28th. The main resnlt is that 

 the pressure changes on that occasion give little or no indication of the 

 direction of advance of the disturbance and that if there were no con- 

 firmatory evidence in favour of a westerly movement from other sources 

 reliance would have to be placed on temperature and rainfall only. 

 But the storm of the 11th August and adjoining days shows beyond all 

 question, that that depression moved from east to west, and as in all 

 other respects there was a striking resemblance between the two storms 



