Sun, Rain and Landslide Alerts!

Well today was back to the low season "kick off" weather - lots of heavy squally showers interspersed with sun and "partly cloudy" weather. The showers can be very heavy and equally brief. As we drove to school this afternoon to pick up our kids, the rain was lashing down a couple of hundred meters from the school, then suddenly the windscreen wipers were rubbing a dry window. This happens often - you can see the edge of the rain. Move 50 meters and you're dry! Despite the briefness of some of these showers, they can dump a large amount of water. This can lead to minor floods on the roads and also minor landslides. The Phuket Gazette announced this today...

As heavy rains continue to dowse the island, the Phuket office of the Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation (DDPM) has issued a landslide warning, effective until at least tomorrow. "We have received good feedback from all 18 local administration organizations in Phuket. We have officers on 24-hour standby, manning phones and radios, ready to deal with any problems,” said Chotenarin Kerdsom, chief of the DDPM – Phuket office.

See: Phuket on Landslide Alert

Not that this should worry the average visitor, but over the last 10 years, with building going ahead willy nilly, especially in the hills, mother nature has been attacked... check out what happened last year in the hills over Patong : Don't Mess with Mother Nature.

Actually the previous 2 days were pretty nice. I have been on holiday, which of course means doing gardening, cleaning, painting, moving furniture. Plenty of sunshine on Monday and Tuesday, though it has been windy as the southwest monsoon winds have well and truly set in. We can expect another week or so of unsettled weather, then we'll be into the low season, when we get mostly nice weather in Phuket!

Sorry, too busy the last few days to take photos (I do normally like to post some pictures to show the weather). Had workers in the house doing some building, it's the start of the school term for the kids etc.. Now the builders are finished and I hope my wife and I can find a nice lunch tomorrow in between doing some of the huge list of "things to do"... Pray for sun and some nice views.