Monsoon! Monsoon! Monsoon!

The overdramatic title to this Phuket Weather blog entry gives a clue to the reason why I decided to start a weather blog - first on the Sunrise Divers Weather page back in 2004, and then this blog in 2006. The reason is this. Weather in Phuket is not as cut and dry as people like to believe. There seems to be a myth that half the year is sunny and half the year is wet. But of course you get rain in the high season and you get (plenty of) sun in the low season.

For an overview of the weather, see here: Phuket Weather

People tend to panic when they hear the word Monsoon, but although the months from May - October have plenty of rain, you get a lot more good weather than bad, hotels are much cheaper, everywhere is less crowded - I think its a good time to come, so long as your holiday plan is not just lying on the beach getting a tan. A bit of rain can't put you off. You can check the archives on the left side of the page and see what the weather was like during the low season months in 2006 and 2007.

I even wrote a little blog item about the low season:

• Phuket in the Low Season

Every year the same questions in travel and diving forums about the monsoon and the rain, will it be bad, will I get no sun etc... Just go! Don't worry about the weather!

Often the wettest part of the low season is just when the seasons change, and that happens to be right now! Combined with the rains that fell due to Cyclone Nargis last week, the winds have now switched to the west-southwest, got quite breezy and brought us plenty of rain. Today (Sunday) has been pretty decent actually, no rain, though I can see the sea looking a bit rough. Friday and Saturday had a competition to see who could win the "wettest day of the year" award. I think Friday was leading until yesterday evening... My wife directed my gaze to the sky at about 8pm - we could see stars and a smiling moon. An hour later the house was battered by wind and rain. We really must fix our leaky roof... never did get it done in the high season, but you know... when it's dry, the roof doesn't need fixing and when it's raining it's too wet to fix it.