Freaky weather. Hey, this is HIGH season!

Let's start with a photo :



Photo above comes from the King's Cup website. The King's Cup is a major Asian sailing regatta that takes place in Phuket every year around the time of the King's birthday. Sometimes in early December there's not much wind at all. That was the case for the first couple of days of the regatta, but this photo is from this morning at Kata Beach. Westerly winds blew up in the night and beached at least 10 racing yachts, and the final day of the regatta was cancelled.

What the? This is December, dude! The rainfall averages show that December is the 3rd driest month of the year. Average rainfall 72mm for the whole month. And really the wind should be from the Northeast, as it was already for the last couple of weeks. For the first 5 days of December, total rainfall was 8mm. Monday 6th was a decent day, not exactly sunny, but no rain... until the night. Now, rain in the night does not bother me, fast asleep at home. I woke and checked my rain gauge. 60mm of rain fell in the night!

The next 2 days were nice - Tuesday and Wednesday, sunny, lots of clear sky, I thought maybe that big downpour on the 6th was the absolute last final hurrah for the rain, clearing the air. There was hardly any wind, diving conditions ideal. We have had a very very busy week at Sunrise Divers, our equipment room looked like this:



We keep 25 sets of gear (BCD/regulator), it was all gone save for 1 BCD, and we were also renting gear from other shops. First week of December is often a bit slow, since most people like to holiday during the "holiday season", but this year we have been very busy. Thanks for coming, everyone! And the weather was good, despite the nighttime rain (we had another 40mm on Thursday night) until today. Freaky weather. West winds should not be blowing in December. Today (Saturday) has been grey and wet all day, though I did see a few rays of sunshine. I took my 5 year old boy to the shipyards on the east of Phuket Town this morning - some friends were having a blessing ceremony for their boat. No photos, I left the camera in the car since it was raining and we had to clamber across 3 other boats to reach the 'Sai Mai'. My boy enjoyed the new experience. Pity about the weather. We went home and decided a wet day meant a trip to the Central Festival mall for lunch and a walk around. Most of Phuket decided the same and it was hard to find a place to park. Central - a good place to go on a wet day! We considered a movie but had not planned anything and the next showing of Harry Potter would have meant a 2 hour wait. Will treat the kids to a movie next weekend. The afternoon was "cool" and I was very happy for a couple of hours sleep. The idea of a cool afternoon is a bit different here, I guess the temperature today never got above 27 degrees, which would be a hot day in England! The temperature in the night can get down to 23 degrees or a bit less, which feels truly cold. Kids will often wear a jacket to school on a morning like that!

On a less rainy note, it was very nice to finally meet Camille yesterday - he lives in Koh Samui and is a PADI "Course Director" which means he trains dive instructors. We have had many conversations in the past on Facebook, email, Skype, but have never met. Camille also does a weather blog for Koh Samui - see here: The Koh Samui Weather Blog, although it also has general info about Samui - hotels, places to eat, news etc.. a must read for anyone heading to Koh Samui. He's already blogged our meeting here.



Is there anyone else in Thailand doing a blog like me or Camille? Any Bangkok weather bloggers or Chiang Mai weather bloggers?

Good night from a freezing Phuket (23 degrees C). :)