Annual report of the Sanitary Commissioner with the Government of India.

  • India. Sanitary Commissioner
Date:
[1892]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual report of the Sanitary Commissioner with the Government of India. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    The air was remarkably dry in the western districts of Bengal, and was drier than usual over parts of the Central Provinces and in the west of the Peninsula. Elsewhere there was somewhat more vapour in the air than usual. The cloud amount was in some excess over Assam, Bengal, Orissa, the Upper Sub-Himalayas and Southern India. Throughout the month the weather was more settled than usual. A slight disturb¬ ance appeared on the 8th in Central India and disappeared on the loth, after giving showers to the central parts of the country and to East and North Bengal. A second dis¬ turbance appeared in Sind on the ioth, and drifted across the head of Peninsula when Cen¬ tral India, the North-Western Provinces, Behar and Chota Nagpur received light showers. The third disturbance was almost rainless, while the last disturbance appeared in Sind and Rajputana on the 25th and gave showers to the Punjab. The normal rainfall of the month is small a'nd the variations from the average were small in most divisions. There was some excess in Burma, Assam, the Gangetic plain and Chota Nagpur, the Upper Sub-Himalayas, the Deccan and Southern India. The greatest excess was^i^o inch in Assam. In all the other divisions there was some deficiency. March.—During March the commencement of the hot weather in Northern and Central India occurs. Owing, perhaps, to the unusually settled weather which prevailed during the preceding cold weather, this change was carried out in March 1(892 with unusual suddenness and intensity, and the month under review was the hottest and driest March experienced since 1865. During the first week of the month the temperature distribution was irregular, and over a large part of the country the mean temperature was below the normal, but after the 8th temperature began to increase rapidly, and from the nth to the end of the month was steadily and largely in excess. In Burma the mean for the month showed a trifling deficiency, but in all the other divisions there was an excess, which in the Indus Valley and North-West Rajputana exceeded 4° in the'Upper Sub-Himalaya division 30, and in Eastern Rajputana, Central India and Guzerat 20. A period of excessive heat occurred at the end of the month between the 26th and 29th, when maxima of 112° to 1150 were recorded at Deesa, Pachpadra and Nagpur, and both the day and night temper¬ atures over North-Western India were between io° and 170 above the average. Pressure showed an unusually large deficiency throughout the whole country, due in great part to the unusual and excessive temperature conditions. At the coast stations the mean humidity of the month was about normal, but over the whole of the interior the amount of vapour was much less than usual, and this com¬ bined with the very high temperatures, occasioned very low humidities, more parti¬ cularly towards the close of the month. The amount of cloud was more or less excessive over Burma, about normal over the west coast districts and South Bengal, and low else¬ where. » Only one depression of any importance affected the weather during March, and this occurred during the first week. In consequence the general rainfall was defective. No rain fell over five-sixths of India. The Punjab and Baluchistan had light showers between the 1st and 4th, Bengal and Orissa experienced thunder showers at intervals the principal periods of disturbance being the 4th and 5 th and the 28th, and Assam, Burma and Malabar also received occasional thunder showers. The rest of India was practically or absolutely rainless. The Burma Coast, the Bay Islands, and the west of the Peninsula had slightly more rain than the average, but all the other divisions had less. April.—Like the preceding month, April was hotter and drier than usual over the whole of North-Western and Central India, but over Bengal, Assam, Burma and the Peninsula thunder-storms were more frequent than usual, and these disturbances occa¬ sioned a considerable lowering of the mean temperature. During the period from the ist to the 16th temperature was in marked excess over Northern and Central India. The 5th, 12th, 13th, and 14th were especially hot days. Thus the maximum temperature at Rawalpindi on the 5th was 22q-j higher than usual, and at Rawalpindi, Peshawar, Dera Ismail Khan, and Multan on the 12th was i6°*3 higher than usual. The mean temperature of the month was in slight defect in Central Bengal, Cachar, Tenasserim and Malabar, but was in excess elsewhere by amounts which increased fairly steadily northward and westward to the Punjab, where the excess was greatest. The general deficiency of pressure noticed during the two preceding months conti¬ nued, but the abnormal deficiency was less than-in March. The air contained more vapour, and the sky was more cloudy than usual over the Peninsula and North-Eastern India, but there was less cloud and less dampness than the normal over the North-West and centre of the country.
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