With the departure of the southwest monsoon on Saturday, the weather turned autumnal on the first day of Kartick yesterday. The morning started with dew drops glistening on fresh grass. The day temperature reached 34.4 degrees Celsius as the sun continued to blaze on a clear sky. Cool winds, however, began to blow in the evening, indicating the advent of winter in a few days. Autumn days this year are expected to be dry unless low pressure and depression in the Bay of Bengal brew a cyclone in the rest of October, according to the Met office forecast for the month. Monsoon arrived this year on June 17 with a burst of shower that made river banks overflow, causing one of the worst flood situations across the country in recent times. The weather office recorded a total of 59,411 mm of rainfall in the rainy season. The ferocity of the floods was such that an elephant was swept down the rain-swollen Brahmaputra from a wildlife sanctuary in north-eastern Assam, India, to the char lands of Gaibandha in northern Bangladesh on June 27. The Met office forecast suggests that the dry weather will prevail. The unmistakable nip in the air in the evening and early morning is already prompting many to wrap themselves with light shawls, even in the concrete jungle of Dhaka.