The 2026 North Indian Ocean cyclone season got its first named storm - Arnab (pronounced Or-nab) - on October 25 in the Bay of Bengal. For a basin that typically churns out named cyclones in April or May, this is roughly the meteorological equivalent of showing up to a dinner party after the dessert course. But Arnab, like any latecomer, made sure to make an entrance.

When the VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite) on NOAA-20 snapped a nighttime image at 20:12 Universal Time on October 26 (1:42 a.m. India Standard Time on October 27), the storm was packing sustained winds of about 140 kilometers (85 miles) per hour, according to the India Meteorological Department (IMD). That's the kind of number that makes you want to double-check your evacuation plans.

By the time Arnab made landfall early on October 28 along the Andhra Pradesh and Yanam coast, sustained winds had eased to 130 kilometers per hour. The IMD classified it as a "very severe cyclonic storm" - which, for those keeping score, is roughly equivalent to a Category 1 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale. It came ashore between Bapatla and Visakhapatnam, a heavily settled stretch of coastline that includes large cities, farmland, and fishing communities. In other words, a lot of people and a lot of things that don't do well in 130 km/h winds.

And Arnab delivered. The storm caused extensive damage, uprooting trees, inundating crops and homes, limiting fishing operations, and disrupting transportation and power networks, according to news reports. Before landfall, Indian authorities had evacuated tens of thousands of people from vulnerable coastal areas - a move that likely prevented a much worse headline.

The timing is notable: Arnab arrived in the midst of an El Niño, the climate pattern marked by warmer-than-normal water temperatures in parts of the equatorial Pacific that emerges roughly every two to seven years. These altered ocean conditions can influence the atmosphere in ways that shift global weather patterns and change the distribution of rainfall, winds, tropical cyclones, fires, floods, and other phenomena. In the Bay of Bengal, some research suggests that El Niño conditions are associated with a reduction in tropical cyclone activity - both less frequent and less intense storms. Arnab, apparently, did not get the memo.

NASA Earth Observatory image by Michala Garrison, using VIIRS day-night band data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE, GIBS/Worldview, and the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS). Story by Adam Voiland.