Here comes the rain!

Just when we were thinking March was going to stay dry, thinking the drought would continue, we finally get some rain. With the weather so hot, it's often about this time of year that we start to get some afternoon thunderstorms. I love a heavy downpour accompanied by a rumble of thunder. After it finishes, the air is clear and fresh, the sky clears and the night is cool.

Sunday night was the first, dark clouds spilling over the hills to where I work at Karon Beach and maybe 15 minutes of heavy rain. I was already on the way home but pulled over to the side of the road for a while - the rain cut visibility, and I did not want to drive over the hill from Kata to Chalong in that rain. The road has been widened in the last year but it's still steep and twisty in places.

Monday (yesterday) 29th March - a much bigger thunderstorm, again starting around 6pm, just before I left our dive shop. Again, I waited for the heaviest rain to pass. On the way home I could see the effect of this little storm with lots of minor flooding on the roads, municipal workers trying to clear some blocked drains. There was a power cut in some areas of Kathu district, but not at our house.

The sudden rain after many dry weeks was worthy of a place in the local news. The Phuket Wan website put a story online last night saying "Phuket Lashed by Deluge" - yeh, nice dramatic title, I think "Lashed" might be a bit strong! A couple of photos:





Top photo shows the hill between Patong and Kathu.. another one I would not drive over in that rain. Second photo - flooding on the road outside Simon Cabaret on the edge of Patong - that section of road ALWAYS floods in the rain.

And this was the result of only about 45 minutes of rain!

Amazingly - I asked my buddy Steen who collects rainfall data - he recorded NO rain on Sunday and just 28mm on Monday! He lives in Patong. This rainfall can be very isolated. Indeed on Sunday when I got home (I live in the Kathu area between Patong and Phuket Town), our street was dry.

This evening, more rain, started about 5pm, all over by about 5:30 - 5:45. Very heavy in Karon Beach at our shop.. Steen told me he got 10mm only! I saved the image loop from the Phuket Weather Radar at around 5pm. The radar shows heavy cloud and rain, you can see it coming from the northeast across Krabi and Phang Nga...



The time shown on the top right is UTC, so the final image in the loop is at 09:53 UTC or 4:53pm local time - about when the rain started. The Phuket Weather Radar image is updated every 20 minutes. If there's going to be some rain, you can see it coming!

Tomorrow it would not surprise me if we have the same weather - hot day, thunderstorm in the evening. It's nice and cool tonight - the Thai Meteorological Department website says the temperature is 25.2°C right now, and last night was 24°C - nice and cool thanks to the rain, I won't even need the aircon.

Forecast: Hot and sunny with evening rain

Not really related save for the inclusion of the words "A Hard rain's gonna fall" and I like it... Sir Bob sings: