CLIMATE. On account of the great extent of India and its differing altitudes, the country has many differences of climate. The whole land may be described as more or less tropical except in the higher altitudes. Slopes of the Hima layas, as high a, they are habitable, enjoy a tem perate climate; neither is there for the natives an oppressive degree of heat on the high pla teau of the Deccan. Among the Himalayas and the Nilgiris Europeans have established sanatori ums amid the most agreeable climatic conditions, where many of them take refuge from the pros trating heat of the hot months. The climate of India. except in the districts of jungle and marsh lands, is not. on the whole, unhealthful for the white race if the ordinary precautions required in all hot countries are observed. The most heated area is that of the northwest. in or about the region of the Indian Desert, where the mean July temperature exceeds 93°.
By far the most important climatic element. is the rainfall, upon which depends the very existence of the people. Throughout the country in general there are only two seasons, the dry and the rainy, also known as the season of the north east and the season of the southwest monsoon. These names are derived from the di rection of the winds prevailing in the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal during the two periods. They are really inapplicable, however, over a great part of India, where the winds are from directions nearly opposite to those indicated by the names of the seasons, and are chiefly deter mined by the axial directions of the local river valleys. Thus the winds in South Bengal are from the southeast. and in Behar from the east, during the southwest monsoon, and are from the opposite directions in the northeast monsoon. The two seasons in India might, therefore, more appropriately he called the dry monsoon and the wet monsoon, from their most characteristic fea tures.
The dry monsoon or season usually begins in November or December, and continues until May. Winds of land origin prevail more or less steadily in the interior. and hence the period is usually marked by great dryness of the air and little or no rain. The first three months of this period (December to February). characterized by a com paratively low temperature. are known as the
cold-weather season : and the second three months (March to May), when the temperature increases rapidly and culminates in a period of excessive heat in May. as the hot-weather sea son. During the cold-weather season storms of large extent. the majority of which form in Persia, enter India from Beluchistan and tra verse Northern India from west to east. distribut ing light rains in the Indo-Gangetie plains and heavy snow over time Western Himalayas. The severity of the hot-weather season is occasionally relieved by the occurrence of thunder-storms and dust-storms. which cool the air for brief periods. The characteristic features of the dry season are persistent dry weather. with clear skies. and large diurnal range of temperature.
The rains of the wet season or the southwest monsoon set in suddenly on time west coast of India in the first week of June. and a little later fin the second or third week of .Tune" on the Bengal coast. and extend more or less rapidly into the interior. The prevailing winds of this period are of oceanic origin. and are. in fact. the northward extension of the winds of the south east trades. The extension of these winds north ward across the equator and up the Indian seas usually begins in the third week of May gives a complete :11111 permanent change of weather (lasting for live or six month.l. more especially over the land area of India. The minds due to the extension of the, litas•iv‘t humid air-currents usually begin to give daily rain to the :Malabar coast in the last week of .Nlay. and to the Bombay coal on June 4th or 5th. The humid currents advance more slowly into the interior, hut are usually established be fore the end of the month over the of India. Cloudy, sboWery, or rainy weather. with a moderately high temperature and small diurnal range of temperature, prevail- tile next three months. which are in striking contrast with the exeessively hot and dry weather that lass prevailed during the previous t WO or three month.. aver the mountain tracts of Assam and over the plains of Lower Burma the yearly rainfall exceeds 500-600 inches, and in one par ticular year the record of 1O5 inches was e?talr iished.