Vulcanology and Bali travel

Question

As it appears that Mt. Agung on Bali is preparing to exhibit some activity, I am interested in what the likelihood of restrictions in air travel to Denpasar might be in the next few weeks.

Worst case for my purposes would be cancellation of flights out of Bali for several days. It appears flights were disrupted last year when a volcano on Java erupted.

Is there a way to put a numerical probability of such a disruption on given days during early October 2017? If so, how can it be done? Are the prevailing winds likely to carry ash south over the airport? Will flights from the North avoid Bali entirely or will they take a slightly longer route around the island?

Answer 1

Unfortunately it's very difficult to predict what could happen. Not only is the timing and scale of a volcano eruption itself unpredictable, but a volcano's ash cloud can travel very far: in 2011, a number of airports in eastern Australia had to shut down because volcano in Chile erupted, even though it was 11,000 km away.

So if Mt Agung does blow, the impact on air traffic will depend greatly on wind patterns at the time. Long-distance flights should be able to reroute to avoid the island entirely quite easily, but flights to/from Bali and nearby destinations (Lombok, Surabaya) are likely to be heavily impacted.