Having taken an early afternoon walk along Karon Beach on Friday, I went back for a few "sundowners" with some other scuba folk in the evening. Couldn't resist some sunset photos...

Over the last few days the thermostat has been turned up. Today has been an oven, but I'll be off down the beach soon for a few cold drinks. There has actually been some rain. I woke up on Thursday morning to see the car was wet. Never noticed the rain falling in the night, must have crept in stealthily. In the afternoon my wife said there had been some heavy rain in Kathu, but in Karon we had nothing but sunshine and a few wisps of cloud (well, maybe more than a wisp, but certainly it never looked like raining).

I took a little walk along Karon Beach in the midday sun today. Beach full of roasting tourists, trying to get some tan to take back to the cold and dark days in Europe. The beach was looking good...



 

Want to know what the weather is like in Phuket right now? Forecast sites are all very well, but forecasts are little more than an educated guess. On the left side of this blog you can find all kinds of Phuket weather forecasts, and links to satellite pictures, weather radars, wind and wave forecasts, even tide tables and sunrise and sunset times... Combine this with the reports of previous months weather on this blog and you can have a pretty good guess at what the weather is like, or will be like. But what's the weather doing right now? Try this live Phuket webcam - it's located at the Marina Phuket Resort right at the south end of Karon Beach. It normally points down onto the beach or to the north looking along the beach.

Karon Beach Information

• Karon Beach Hotel Suggestions
• Karon Beach Info @ Jamie's Phuket Blog
• Karon Beach Hotels - Booking Online @ Agoda.com

Karon Beach Webcam

Note that weather can be very localised in Phuket due to the hilly terrain (hills rise up over 1700 feet in Phuket), so if you see rain in Karon it can easily be sunny in Phuket Town just 20km away.

• Original of this webcam on Marina Phuket website
• More Thailand Webcams

The heat is on! Gas Mark 4. Were you born on the sun? It's damn hot! Well, not too bad, though I had a number of British customers mention the heat today. Rather here than there... snow at Easter?

The weekend was warm. Saturday was one of those lazy days. Get up late. Lie down again, go shopping, have a lie down... Finally dragged the family out to Phuket Town, down to Sapan Hin for the Phuket Food Festival (on now! last day is the 28th). All kinds of food stalls, and some live entertainment too!

• Phuket Food Festival

There's great scuba diving around Phuket at this time of year. We have been very busy the last week especially with liveaboard departures to the Similan Islands. Hardly time to catch a breath some days! If you want to dive in this area, check out Sunrise Divers...

Today has been busy again, I need a cold beer. On the way to Karon this morning I took a small detour. Atop the hill between Chalong and Kata you find a place called Plub Pla, which was a restaurant and hilltop resort, but never ever seemed busy. It's closed and for sale now. If I had enough money I'd like to buy it. Would need a lot of money. Great views from up there, very peaceful and the resort is wonderfully landscaped. Who can lend me a million? (and I mean pounds, not Baht!)

Of course, Phuket is not famous for the Full Moon Party - to find this you need to head to Koh Pha Ngan and join the drunken ravers on the beach. I have never been and never will, not my cup of tea at all. You can find some great photos here:

• Koh Pha Ngan Full Moon Party Photos

The next party is... tonight! See more info here: Full Moon Party

BUT, we of course have exactly the same moon right here in Phuket, so tonight is the night of the full moon. On a clear night I love to see the moon rising over the hills behind our house. Today we have clear blue skies once more.

• Moon Rise, Moon Set and Moon Phases in Phuket

The moon is the main factor governing tides. Hey, we all know that, we learned about tides at school, right? Around Phuket the tides are not large, maybe 3 meters, peaking a day or two after full moon. Around the half moon, tides can be less than half a meter. The tides affect the beaches - some beaches are very shallow so if you have a very low low tide, it might be a hike to the sea, or the low tide may expose rocks, making swimming difficult. This is not a problem on the main west coast tourist beaches (Patong, Karon, Kata) but is noticeable at some smaller beaches.

Tides also cause local currents due to the incoming and outgoing tides. When you have greater tidal movement, currents are stronger. As a dive instructor I am very aware of currents! A dive at the King Cruiser Wreck (between Phuket and Phi Phi) is very different when diving with slack water compared to diving between high and low tide just after a full moon! A set of tide tables is essential for any boat cruising these waters.

• Phuket Tide Tables

By the way, did I mention it's another B.E.A. UTIFUL day here in Phuket. I'm just too darn busy to go around taking photos today. Hope to visit the Phuket Food Festival tomorrow which is taking place at Sapan Hin (Phuket Town).

Yes, it's definitely the hot season. What a beautiful day. I just had time in the morning to take a detour to Rawai Beach. It's nice and quiet down there. We used to come here a lot some years ago, and yes the area has seen a fair amount of development over the last 8 years, but it still has a relaxed olde worlde flavour. I took a walk on the new (and rather ugly) concrete jetty and watched a fisherman heading out to sea. I really had to tear myself away and head off to work. I could hang around Rawai all day (especially since I know that Nikitas Bar sells ice cold Beer Lao).

Although we still have a light wind blowing, there's no mistaking the heat. From now until the start of the "low season" (sometime in May), the days will be hot, the sun relentless and the seas warm. This is what I call Phuket's Hot Season. I've been too darn busy to go and take nice photos the last couple of days. This is a very good time of year for diving and we've had a lot of guests heading out to the Similan Islands.

Saturday was my daughters graduation. The kids got to sit in aircon while families watched the proceedings on a giant screen outside. Bizarre enough having a graduation for 6 year old kids. It was a hot day and we all retreated home for some aircon in the afternoon. Dinner (daughters choice) was at Pizza Company in the Tesco Lotus store. The Pepsi refills are a good deal at the end of a hot thirsty day!

I'll see about some pretty photos tomorrow morning. The mornings are clear and blue at this time of year. I'd like to head down to Sapan Hin (the south side of Phuket Town) where the Phuket Food Festival will be held from March 19th - 28th. Must make an effort to visit during the festival too.

Meanwhile, it's quite shocking as a Phuket resident to hear of another tourist being killed - see news in the Phuket Gazette.

And I'd like to add a link here to the Students for a Free Tibet Blog.

Oh, and happy Saint Patrick's Day.

What a beautiful day! The sky is very very blue indeed. I can only hope for the same tomorrow, since today I have been working, whereas tomorrow is a day off, and also my daughters graduation... from kindergarten (a bizarre concept, but I we are proud parents nonetheless).

Weather can't get much better and we still have that breeze blowing from the northeast to cool things down. Once the wind stops, the heat really starts. Reports from divers in the Similan Islands say the waters are super clear, great visibility, great diving conditions. I really must get out there soon instead of staying in the office every day "organising" things.

I did manage a "photo op" while on the way to work. I took the side road that leads past Phuket Zoo and down the the coastline on Chalong Bay. Down this road are a number of seafood restaurants such as Parlai Seafood, Nai Yao Seafood, Phongphang Seafood and Prantalay Seafood, all right by the water. The photos below were all taken infront of Prantalay Seafood this morning. Very peaceful down there by the water.

There was a darkening of the skies yesterday afternoon, but nothing happened. The last few days have been hot and sunny with a breeze still blowing from the Northeast, which I have to say is unusual for mid March, but the alternative is super hot windless days. Windguru shows winds of 13 - 14 knots, but predicts the winds dying off by next week. Meanwhile, back "home" in the UK... see storm photos on the BBC.

This morning I drove through Patong (had to go to the bank), but on the way took a detour along the ultimate back road which winds over the hills. I blogged about the road before - see Take The High Road. Great views from up here, would make a good mountain bike ride or even a good hike. A bit hard going on my Honda Wave!


(above) View over Kathu




(above) View over Patong

Yesterday's weather was indeed fabulous, and despite my Man Cold, I joined the family and a few friends for lunch at The Beach Bar, one of our favourite little hangouts, a small friendly restaurant right on the beach on the west side of Cape Panwa. We go quite often. The kids can play safely, and when it's high tide you can swim (at low tide it's too rocky). I don't know how many more years we'll be able to find places like this in Phuket, the developers are rapidly changing the island especially the coastline. For now, enjoy:





Today is equally beautiful, looks like we are back to normal. Weather should be hot and sunny at this time of year in Phuket, no rain, please! And its the time of year when we start to wonder "should we install aircon in the living room?"

World Weather.. My half Aunt Ruth has been living in Madagascar, she married a local guy - she has written all about life in Madagascar on her blog called Vazahagasy. Magagascar has been hit by a cyclone and a tropical storm in the last few weeks with more than 90 people killed and thousands left homeless. As I now have a "half uncle-in-law" and his family living there, my thoughts are with them. My kids love it that Auntie Ruth lives in Madagascar.

Yes, even in Phuket we notice the days getting longer. During March 2008, according to this Sunrise and Sunset calculator, every day is 26 seconds longer than the next here in Phuket. Today the day is 12 hours and 50 seconds long, tomorrow we'll have 12 hours, 1 minute and 16 seconds. The longest day will be around 21st June, when the day will be 12 hours, 35 minutes and 23 seconds long. The shortest day will be December 21st, with the day just 11 hours 39 minutes and 37 seconds long. So almost an hour between the shortest and longest days in Phuket.

Back home in England... there is a huge difference between summer and winter. We don't have those seasons here in Phuket. In London the longest day is a staggering 16 hours, 38 minutes 23 seconds with the sunset not until 9:22pm. The shortest day a mind numbing 7 hours 49 minutes 40 seconds between sunrise and sunset. The sun sinks before 4pm. Those winter days can get to you. I remember going to work in the dark and coming home in the dark. On the other hand the long summer evenings are great. Gotta take the rough with the smooth.

• Find Sunrise and Sunset times for your location

So whats the weather doing here in Phuket...? Warm, mostly sunny, a bit hazy, light winds, quite nice actually. Unfortunately, poor Jamie is a bit under the weather. Last night I had a slight fever, a terrible sore throat and headache, drank 2 cups of lemon tea and slept at 8 o'clock. Poor me. Hopefully tomorrow will continue with the beautiful weather so we can go to the beach with the kids.

A very good day to all Phuket Weather readers.... there seem to be a lot of people asking about the weather recently - I am getting emails, facebook messages and seeing questions on the travel chat rooms - the problem is that the common forecast sites such as the BBC, Yahoo or Wunderground (see links on left side of this blog) all seem to indicate rain or thunderstorms. In fact, the weather is warm and sunny, maybe a bit hazy, but pretty darn nice. Maybe some evening rain, but nothing to worry about. Yes, there is the chance of a thunderstorm, but a quick downpour at 8pm is unlikely to ruin your holiday.

Fact is the forecast sites are not forecasts; they are just a rough guess with (in gamblers terms) a wide spread, so you see symbols like this:



This means - might be sunny, maybe some rain, might be cloudy, we don't know. Whatever happens we can claim to be partially correct.

The rain (if it comes) always seems to fall at the same time as I leave the dive center and get on my bike to ride home. Last night was typical - no sign of rain until 7pm, then all of a sudden, just as I mount my trusty steed, the rain starts a spittin'. Luckily it did not amount to much. This morning was totally overcast and rather hazy, but the sun burned through by mid morning. The day has been hot and sunny. See photo below grabbed from the Karon Beach Web Cam.





(above) Worker on the roof behind our little temple in Karon Plaza. Please do note that it's sunny and not raining or thundery.

It was some 39 years ago that I saw the light of day for the first time. This suddenly seems like a very large number to me. Much larger than 38. I was 30 when I came to Thailand. Things like trucking across Africa and cycling the Pyrenees seem a long time ago. It was 17 years ago that I completed a Masters Degree in Forensic Chemistry. The years pass alarmingly fast. My little boy, born just 2 weeks after after the tsunami, he's going to start school soon.

Now a suitable quote. We all grow up and get older, though we'd all like to be Peter Pan.

You must have been warned against letting the golden hours slip by. Yes, but some of them are golden only because we let them slip.

JM Barrie

The last few days I have hardly noticed the weather. I'm sure there has been some, but it's all a bit of a blur. With the northeast winds barely blowing, things have become a bit hot and humid. There's been some sun, some cloud and some rain too, but nothing serious, just the odd small thunderstorm and some low cloud. My wife and a friend went up Buddha Mountain again on Thursday and the views were completely obscured as the top of the hill was in the clouds.

Today started sunny but there was a fair old downpour in the afternoon almost ruining a kids birthday party that we went to. I guess this kind of weather might continue for a few more days yet before the real "hot season" starts.

What has been of interest in Thailand over the last few days has been the political climate. With the elections completed in December, the PPP won the majority vote. Some people say the PPP is nothing more than a proxy for Thaksin and the banned Thai Rak Thai. I really don't get into politics. Never did. Yes, I voted a couple of times in England, but never really had any real interest in British politics.



One does start to wonder why there was a coup... what has been achieved? Now Thaksin is back and he has lots of support, "his" party is in power, the liberals and democrats, though they may have pretty faces, are outvoted. We seem to be back exactly where we were before September 19th 2006!

Which way will the political wind blow next? It might be time for me to take my head out of the rabbit hole and pay attention. There are several blogs which report on news and politics such as Bangkok Pundit, The Lost Boy, the Bangkok Bugle, or you can check the good old BBC, or Thai news sources such as The Nation, Bangkok Post or MCOT.

Let's hope for sunshine.