Kathmandu, April 1

The Department of Hydrology and Meteorology today tried to join all the dots to identify the type of natural disaster that hit Bara and Parsa districts last night, but could not. A statement issued by the department — which should have predicted the looming disaster — late this evening plainly said the districts were hit by ‘a storm along with rain’.

Minor thunderstorm and light rain are common during the months between mid-March to mid-May. “But yesterday’s weather condition was extreme with wind travelling at a speed of around 90 km per hour,” said the statement issued by the department.

The disaster, according to meteorologist Shanti Kandel, is a culmination of three weather patterns. First, cold wind travelled from Pokhara towards Bara.

This wind collided with hot air travelling from India’s Uttar Pradesh towards Bara, triggering wind storm. The collision of hot and cold air and subsequent wind storm are normal, said Kandel.

“But something unusual happened yesterday,” Kandel added.

“The heat generated in areas around Bara following pre-monsoon rainfall also collided with hot air and cold air that had travelled from Pokhara and India. This is the reason why the natural disaster was so devastating.”

So, why did the department fail to predict this weather condition?

The National Weather Forecasting Centre of India had clearly warned that ‘thunderstorm accompanied by squall with estimated speed of 50 to 60 kmph’ would hit areas near Nepal like Bihar, West Bengal and Sikkim.

“We largely rely on satellite images that show changing weather patterns. But these images do not always give a clear picture. So, we have to tally them with data that we collect from specific areas where weather changes are taking place. This is generally how we forecast weather conditions,” said senior meteorologist Sujan Subedi.

“But we could not predict yesterday’s weather condition because we did not have adequate information on developments that were taking place.”

The department did not have ‘adequate information’ yesterday because of ‘lack of sophisticated technology and skilled manpower’, claimed Subedi.

The statement issued today by the department also said that it lacked ‘skilled manpower and advanced technology, such as weather forecast radar and ensemble numerical model, to forecast weather conditions’.