170 J. Eliot— T/ie South-West Monsoon Storms [No. 2, 



G A. M., after which the weather rapidly improved. A fresh breeze was 

 blowing at 10 A. m. with occasional heavy squalls. At noon, the storm 

 was completely over, and she had light breezes of force 2 from the S. S. W., 

 fine weather, and a smooth sea. 



The Mount Stuart, in Lat. 15° 51' N. Long. 91° 30' E. at noon, had 

 westerly winds of force 5 early in the morning, with a heavy cross sea. 

 The weather improved rapidly, and was quite settled in appearance at 

 night, with fine clear skies and light winds of force 1 to 2. The Byculla, 

 Bancoora, and Chanda were steaming along the south coast of Burmah 

 towards Rangoon. They had fine weather with south-westerly winds 

 of average force 3. 



It thus appears that the first action of the Burmese hills, which are 

 comparatively low, had been to retard the advance of the centre very con- 

 siderably between noon of the 12th and of the 13th. During the next 

 24 hours, it advanced rapidly almost due northwards with a very slight 

 easterly tendency. It then approached the coast to the east of Akyab 

 on the morning of the 14th. The depression was, however, very much 

 smaller than hitherto, and the cyclonic motion very considerably broken 

 up. The winds were irregular in direction near the centre. The rainfall 

 was evidently much less in amount, and more widely distributed. The 

 observations taken at Akyab and Chittagong at 4 p. M. shew that the 

 disturbance was then almost completely disintegrated. There was at 

 that hour an irregular, but very feeble, cyclonic circulation, which passed 

 away before the following morning. 



15th November. — The meteorology of the 15th is given to show how 

 completely the cyclonic disturbance had broken up. 



The barometric changes of the previous 24 hours were exceedingly 

 irregular. The only important change was in Arakan, where the baro- 

 meter had risen very rapidly with the disappearance of the cyclonic 

 disturbance. The winds show very little alteration generally. In the 

 North- West Provinces and Punjab, they were very variable. In Bengal 

 and Orissa, they had a much stronger northerly component than is usual 

 in November. The weather was fine, and skies were clear over nearly the 

 whole country, except Burmah and Arakan, where they were still more or 

 less clouded, and moderate rain was falling. In the Punjab, though the 

 sky was generally clear and humidity decreasing, the weather still 

 appeared unsettled. The exceptional character of the weather in the 

 Punjab during the previous week, is illustrated by the fact that the average 

 rainfall of the hill stations at Simla and Chakrata for the month of 

 November is nil, whilst, during the previous fifteen days, four inches had 

 fallen at the former station, and 3J inches at the latter. 



