Nepal Weather Department Warns of Storm Effects From Oct 28 to Nov 1

Nepal's Meteorological Forecasting Division says the country's weather will turn active from Wednesday, October 28, Kartik 11 on the Nepali calendar, as a low pressure system over the Bay of Bengal strengthens into a storm. OnlineKhabar and Nagarik both reported the division's notice on Friday, October 23.

The division says a low pressure area has formed over the east central and adjacent southeastern Bay of Bengal and is expected to get stronger. By Monday, October 26, Kartik 9, it could turn into a full cyclonic storm, the division said, moving west northwest toward India's coast. It is likely to make landfall near north Andhra Pradesh and the adjacent south Odisha coast, not in Nepal.

The division says this wider weather system could still shake up Nepal's weather. It could bring cloudy skies and rain here from Wednesday, October 28 through Sunday, November 1, Kartik 11 to 15. It flagged farms and the tourism trade as sectors that could feel the effects, and asked everyone concerned to stay alert.

But the division was careful to say what it does not yet know. Its notice, as both outlets reported, says it cannot yet confirm how much rain will fall in Nepal, how risky the weather will get, or exactly what effects to expect. Nagarik reported the notice went out Friday evening, and that forecasters are watching satellite images and weather models, promising updates as the picture becomes clearer.

What the coverage missed

Neither OnlineKhabar nor Nagarik's report mentions that a similar chain of events, a Bay of Bengal cyclone striking India's east coast, has fed a deadly snowstorm in Nepal before. In October 2014, the remnants of Cyclone Hudhud merged with a trough over the Himalayas after the storm hit Visakhapatnam, and the resulting snowstorm killed at least 43 people, including at least 21 trekkers, around Annapurna and Dhaulagiri, according to Wikipedia's account of the disaster, which draws on Reuters and BBC reporting. Experts cited in that record say the snowstorm came from an unusual merger of the cyclone with an upper trough. Hudhud itself had also formed from a Bay of Bengal low pressure area before striking the Andhra Pradesh coast, the same track the current system is forecast to follow, according to Wikipedia's entry on the cyclone.

That history does not mean this system will repeat it. The division has not said the current system carries snowstorm risk, and its own notice says the scale of any effect on Nepal cannot yet be confirmed.

What we still do not know

• Whether Nepal's disaster management authority, the NDRRMA, has issued its own alert or coordination notice alongside the weather division's warning.
• Whether the Trekking Agencies' Association of Nepal or the Nepal Tourism Board has told trekking groups now on the Everest, Annapurna or Manaslu routes what to do if the weather turns.
• Which districts or river basins the weather division or the NDRRMA consider most at risk from the system.

The division says it will update its notice as the system develops. The next test comes Monday, October 26, the day the division says the low could become a cyclonic storm.