II. On the connexion of the Himalaya snowfall with dry winds and seasons of drought in India

Abstract

The present paper, as regards its subject-matter though not in form, is part of a general investigation of the rainfall of India, which has occupied much of my spare time for some years past, and the results of which are already partly embodied in a memoir which I hope, in the course of a few months, to issue as an official publication of the Indian Meteorological Office. The idea that the snowfall of the Himalaya exercises a direct and important influence on the dry land winds of North-Western India is not now put forward for the first time. It has been the subject of frequent reference in the annual reports on the meteorology of India since 1876, as well as elsewhere; and in a report on the administration of the India Meteorological Department lately issued, I summarised very briefly those points in the experience of the previous five years which have seemed to justify its provisional adoption as a basis for forecasting the probable character of the monsoon rains. Relying on this experience, in the month of June last, I put forward in the Government Gazette, a note giving warning of the probability of a prolonged period of drought in the approaching monsoon season, and the result, if not in exact accordance with the terms of the forecast, has been so far confirmatory of the general idea, as to induce me to put the facts of past experience formally on record, and thereby challenge attention to the subject. If I am right in the inference that the varying extent and thickness of the Himalayan snows exercise a great and prolonged influence on the climatic conditions and weather of the plains of North-Western India, it is probable, that with more or less modification according to the local geography, causes of a similar character will be found equally operative in other regions, and perhaps on an even more extensive scale.