It's almost all sun in Phuket now, though in the last week there has been a few spots of rain and some days that were quite cloudy. The only big rainfall was on Monday 22nd - I measured 42mm, but never noticed any rain as it all fell in the night. Rain in the night.. who cares! Next morning was bright and sunny, though I do recall a few drips in the afternoon.

What is this fear of rain? Why are so many people worried that "it might rain"? Will rain ruin your life? Wash away all happiness in the world? Please, people - please take note. Rain here in Phuket, when it does fall, is not like the rain you'd get in England or Norway or Canada. Why? Because it's warm. OK, you might not want to lie on the beach in the rain, but put up an umbrella and take a walk. Head to the Big Buddha, or a nice seafood restaurant (restaurants do have a roof you know), or a walk in old Phuket Town, or hire a car and take a drive around the coast to Kamala, Naithon and Nai Yang. Much of the time, the rain is light. There are really not many days in the year when the weather is SO bad that you can't do anything, even in the low season. My parents visited this year from September 14th to October 5th - statistically just about the wettest time of year. We were out doing stuff every day!.. Cue, the Beatles... If the rain comes, they run and hide their heads... they might as well be dead ...



Anyway, now it's high season, and sorry for no updates here for over a week, though you can follow me on Twitter for mini updates. Busy. Not busy enough for the boss, so I am putting in extra effort. Our dive shop, Sunrise Divers, is the place to look for diving at the Similan Islands, especially for Thailand diving liveaboards. Do come to our office and say hello! We're at Karon Beach - here's a Karon beach map. This is a good time of year - calm seas, hot, but not too hot. Great for anything out on the water.

Great for football too! On Saturday, I took my 5 year old boy to see his first live game. FC Phuket are in the playoffs with a chance of promotion to Division 1 of the Thai league. I went to one game before which I blogged (see Going to Watch the Football: FC Phuket). This game was in the evening against Bangkok FC, it had been a hot day on Saturday, blue skies all day. From our seat in the stadium we could see across the hills in southern Phuket to the Big Buddha. A few drops of rain fell in the second half, prompting mass panic among the supporters in the uncovered east stand. RAAAINN! HEEELLP! Rain lasted about 23 seconds, so everyone sat down again. Phuket won the game 2-0, my son wants to go again. You can see the goals here on Youtube. Next home game is December 19th against the co-leaders of the playoff group, Rayong.

Forecast. I think the Beatles said it best again. Getting Better All The Time...



And a final word - if you are planning a trip to Phuket, I suggest looking at Agoda for hotels in Phuket. Very easy to use website, guaranteed best rates they say and there is a rewards scheme for repeat bookings and so on. Have a look.

Sorry for not doing super regular updates here but at this time of year it would become an endless list of "sunny, hot"; "warm and sunny"; "nice day" etc... This blog tends to summarise the weather we've had, but there are many ways to get a good idea of the current weather - check the links on the left of the page. I suggest skipping all weather forecasts online, they are all rubbish, with the exception of Windguru, although that's more useful for wind and wave forecasts - we dive shops look at it, as we don't want big waves, but a bit of rain never hurts :)

And so long as it's during local daylight hours (thats about 6am - 6pm, and we are GMT + 7) - you can check the webcam at Karon Beach.

And then you have Twitter - I do post mini updates on the weather, as well as news, comments, Phuket related links etc... Please do follow me - Jamie on Twitter :)

It's now 100% high season - wind blowing lightly from the Northeast, fluffy clouds, blue skies ... and some evening thunder. It's rumbling around now as I sit here, 8pm - same yesterday, and on Thursday last week we had some heavy nighttime rain, but blue skies all day :) I really should stop and take a blue sky photo at the beach tomorrow... or you can just check that webcam :)

Weather is now officially great for diving - come and see me at Sunrise Divers in Phuket! In fact, weather is great for just about anything, but things do seem a bit quiet in Phuket. I don't think it's my imagination. It's not busy enough. Come on, you lot! Get over here!

Yesterday was Loy Krathong, an important Thai festival giving thanks to the goddess of the water (thanks for the rain!), and also casting adrift bad luck. A few years ago I wrote on Jamie's Phuket about Making the Krathong out of banana stalk, leaves and adding candles, incense, flowers and cuttings of family hair and nails - the idea of that being to cast off your bad luck and bad feelings. We sometimes head to the main celebrations in Phuket which are held in Phuket Town, at Patong and Karon Beaches and other places. We took our krathong to float in the sea at one of our favourite restaurants (The Beach Bar).

We got there just after sunset ...



And floated our krathongs in the water with some friends ...



Forecast - hot and sunny. Yes, it's high season.

Updating the Phuket weather blog in the low season is more interesting than high season. In an average February, a daily update would be "Hot, sunny" followed next day by "Sunny, hot" for a bit of variety. But this time of year now, when the southwest winds are turning into northeast winds, is more interesting. Actually the season is changing late, normally you'd expect NE winds by the end of October, maybe as early as the middle of October. We've had some odd weather recently, though we missed the floods that hit other parts of south Thailand.

My last update was 6 days ago, and I figured high season had arrived already, we had some nice days, no rain for 4 -5 days in a row, winds were light.. My main excitement last week was renewing my work permit. Spent ages getting all the paperwork together, headed to the work permit renewals office where of course.. one photocopy was not clear enough and the boss had not initialed a correction on one form. OK, no problem, see you again tomorrow! I always allow at least a day before the actual expiry date, as there is always some small error in the paperwork.

And just when I thought the weather was sweet - Thursday and Friday were WET WET WET. In those 2 days, I measured 145mm rain. It was steady rain, pretty much non stop, nothing heavy, so there was no flooding or anything, but certainly no sunshine either! Is that a lot - 145mm.... well compare to a place back home that everyone considers wet - Manchester. Have a look at the weather averages for Manchester ... highest average monthly rainfall is 86mm for October. We got 80mm in ONE day on Friday! So am I saying the weather in Manchester is better than Phuket? Get the Phuk outa here!


TWITTER - I post mini updates on the weather, plus news, links and intelligent insight on my Twitter page. To keep up to date with Phuket, do Follow me (Jamie Monk) on Twitter!

So, after 2 very wet days, Saturday was very nice! Not perfect blue skies but certainly nice enough for an afternoon and evening at the beach with friends while all our kids played in the sea and covered themselves in sand. A very nice evening.



And today - started with clear blue skies, perfect morning, hardly any wind, has been a bit of rain in the late afternoon, but only a light shower. The forecast on Windguru looks good, winds dying down to nothing, flat calm seas next week. I think I might even go diving!

Non weather related - on Saturday I was on TV - France24.com had already published a story using my photos from the vegetarian festival - last week I did a little interview via webcam and this was aired on Saturday - see here! :)

So a week ago, Phuket was bracing itself for the BIG STORM which caused serious flooding in Southern Thailand, but nothing much happened in Phuket. We had a couple nights and mornings of heavy rain and that was it. No floods, and by the evening of 3rd November when I went see see off some liveaboard customers, weather was great - blue skies and calm seas. Weather changes fast. That was all in the last update.

Rainfall since the 3rd ... my trusty rain gauge has measured 1mm in 5 days and that was last night. Might be some rain tonight. It's been hot and steamy, sky quite hazy, winds are still blowing from the west which is odd for November, you'd expect the direction to change by now. I noticed the waves still looked a fair size at Karon Beach today. But in general, decent weather, despite the haze and waves.

Saturday was hot, and we spent at least an hour hanging around outside Phuket Fantasea due to poor organisation by the school who'd organised a kids and parents trip at a special school price... but had not actually got the tickets yet, so hundreds of people were queuing on a hot afternoon. I'd never been tempted before to visit Phuket's biggest tourist show, but... I admit, it was good. Kids loved it. We might go again actually.

A couple of pictures outside the "Palace of the Elephants" - the main theatre which seats 3,000 people! More about Phuket Fantasea on Jamie's Phuket - and you can book tickets for the show with Easy Day Thailand.

Well, there was plenty of weather this week! Firstly, while Phuket enjoyed several rain free days at the end of October (I measured no rain at all on 28th, 29th and 30th, and only 4mm on the 31st), there was major flooding at the same time in the Northeast of Thailand, with 100+ deaths attributed to the floods. Same country but a long long way from Phuket. I had a day away from the dive shop on Saturday. Weather was sunny but with a cool wind blowing. The seasons are changing, and that cool wind was coming from the north. Temperatures further north in Thailand "plummeted" to 15 degrees C or less. I read something today about 4 degrees C near Chiang Mai (probably on a mountain).

Here in Phuket, if temperature gets down to 22 degrees C, that feels cold. I think I recall some nights with 20 - 21 degrees a few times. On Saturday we ate dinner at The Beach Bar, sitting at a table on the sand. My dear wife wished she'd brought a jacket with her. It did feel chilly, which probably sounds silly...



(above) view from our table at The Beach Bar. Our kids play in the sand. Our yacht moored offshore.

After the weekend, things changed. Wingduru was predicting 40 knot winds and heavy rain for Phuket on Monday. Seems a tropical depression was heading towards the east coast of Thailand, and then heading across land to hit us. Not a cyclone or even a "tropical storm", just a big blob of cloud bearing lots of rain. It was supposed to hit us on Monday night or Tuesday morning. Monday morning was cool and drizzly. Temperature only 23 degrees C. On Monday evening, Phuket was braced for a storm.

Tuesday morning - yeh, it was raining, but not much. I was checking online for storm news, and Twittering away, or Tweeting or whatever. Phuket it seems was spared. Big floods in Hat Yai, Songkhla, Narathiwat, Trang, and Koh Samui was battered by winds and waves that led to the airport being closed and no ferried running (see Koh Samui Weather Blog). I measured just 34mm rain in 24 hours from Monday morning - Tuesday morning. Drove to work at 9am, no flooding anywhere, and in fact the sky brightened in the afternoon. The Phuket Gazette reported some damage to longtail boats, but nothing else.

I kept using this blog over the last 2 days to check on the latest situation - on the left side of the blog there are links to webcams, weather radar, satellite pictures, wind forecasts and more. Twitter also very useful - I "follow" a lot of people based in Thailand who often tweet latest photos, news, eyewitness reports etc... See: Twitter - People I Follow.

So Tuesday passed, and I figured it might be a sunny Wednesday.. Wrong! This morning was wetter than yesterday! Well, at least for a few hours. There was apparently some heavy rain and minor flooding in the night (see report). My rain gauge only showed 37mm when I zeroed it at 7am, and shows 18mm now at 9pm - rain stopped by about 10am. I drove through rain on the way to Karon Beach, but saw no flooding at all, and when I arrived at the dive shop, sun was out! Later I went down to Chalong Jetty to visit some customers heading out on a 4 day dive trip to the Similan islands. What a nice evening it was! And such a change from the morning. So.. is high season here now?!