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



storms from Thibet influence the overhead current so as to render the 

 advent of the monsoon possible in the first case as far west as Central 

 India and the Kumaon Himalayas, and in the second case to the extreme 

 west of the empire I am making an assumption in support of which I 

 believe numerous examples such as the Rangoon cyclone of 1902 can 

 be cited. The influence of these storms from Thibet was in all proba- 

 bility greater in the upper reaches of the atmosphere than is shown by 

 the ground level observations, because in the first place the storms were 

 at a high level to begin with, owing to the Central Asian plateau, and in. 

 the second place the Himalayan range was an obstacle to their progress 

 so serious that none but disturbances extending to a great height could 

 have passed over them without complete disintegration. 



Before closing I will refer very briefly to the storms which occurred 

 in the Arabian Sea during 1902. They were only three in number. 

 Two occurred in period (A), viz., the two Karachi cyclones and they 

 moved in much the same direction as the two storms in that period 

 from the Bay, that is, northward or north-eastward. The third occurred 

 in July and was therefore in period (B). That storm appears to me to 

 be very suggestive as to the circumstances in which monsoon conditions 

 may be produced by a cyclonic storm. It entered Guzerat and the part 

 of India which was most in need of rainfall. It, however, ceased to be 

 a well-defined cyclonic disturbance, while still over Guzerat and though, 

 a steep pressure gradient developed shortly afterwards over the whole 

 of North-Western India and there were all the appearances which 

 would suggest a strong inrush of monsoon winds with general rainfall, 

 only a few showers fell and those near the coast. The weather produced 

 by that depression, which was quite as deep as any one of the " remark- 

 able series " in the third period, was dry hot weather, rather than 

 monsoon weather. 



The following extracts from the Indian Daily Weather Report, 

 during the time of that disturbance will show that what I have stated 

 above is borne out by the daily observations and also that it was difficult 

 if not impossible to forecast the behaviour of the depression as regards 

 the line of advance. 



July Qth. — " The low pressure area in the Arabian Sea is apparently 

 still an ill-defined disturbance, and has not yet developed into a cyclonic 

 storm." 



July 1th. — " The cyclonic storm in the Arabian Sea is apparently 

 advancing towards the Kathiawar Coast." 



July 8th. — " The cyclonic storm in the Arabian Sea crossed the 

 Kathiawar Coast yesterday afternoon and has apparently been almost 

 stationary during the past eighteen hours. Its future course is un- 



