Mostly Harmless

The last update on the weather blog was a week ago and we left off with blue skies. Low season weather often changes quickly, but tends to have wet or sunny periods of several days in duration. This month we had no rain from 3rd - 9th July, them wet days from 11th - 15th, then sunny again through most of the week, there was some light rain last Friday (22nd) but last week was a good time to be in Phuket - low season IS a bit of a lottery, if you get sun, combined with low hotel prices, it's great! Just one thing that needs to be mentioned, AGAIN. Look, it's low season, the sun can be shining, you can have a great holiday in Phuket, BUT ... please note that some of the beaches may have big waves. If you see big waves and red flags flying, please do NOT go swimming at the beach. I KNOW you are on a "beach holiday" but swim at the hotel pool, please. I wrote about this last year in more detail : Please Don't Drown on your Phuket Holiday.

Phuket Wan website tells more. 2 people drowned at Karon Beach this month, both went out for a swim around sunset, red flags flying and rough seas. The "blame game" is played in the comments section - do you blame the authorities for not having enough signs? Do people think a red flag means it's safe? Do people just ignore the red flags? Is it common sense? Should there be warnings on inbound flights or in hotels? Would people care anyway? I do find that people on holiday tend to think "hey, I'm on holiday, what can possibly happen?" - well, please, anyone reading this - and that means around 4,000 people this week - pay attention to red flags and the sea condition, please don't take risks. The pool in your hotel is safer.

Carrying on with the weather ... after a week of mostly sunny skies, the weekend got wet. I have measured 80mm of rain since Saturday. Luckily did not rain Saturday evening as we had a birthday dinner at The Yellow Door for our daughter. The seating there is mostly outdoor, thank you to the weather gods for the help. Sunday was pretty grey and damp too, especially in the morning. Our sons football was cancelled, we had late breakfast at a little restaurant in Phuket Town run by a friend (Moo Grob Khun Yai) and just after eating another friend from another restaurant called to invite us over, loads of food and drink - a closing party for the restaurant. Rest of day = hazy. Partly due to cloud, partly due to Chang Beer.

Last 2 days .. well Sunday night was wet and windy. I had customers on a dive trip for Monday morning, and it was cancelled. By the time they came to our shop to moan about the trip being cancelled, the weather was quite a bit better - it can change so fast. I booked them for a trip Tuesday morning - and looking out my window about 8am it looked terrible, they were probably hoping this one WOULD be cancelled! With dive trips its hard to tell by looking at the rain, it's more about the sea condition really. But yesterday morning the weather, at least for a short time, was bad enough that a flight from Bangkok, due to land at 9am, turned back to Bangkok - see report in the Phuket Gazette. The passengers were said to be annoyed about this. They should be reminded of what happened on 16th September 2007.

Started grey again today, boo! I guess the wet days will last a day or two more and then we'll have sunny days again for a while. Reminder - please Follow me on Twitter for weather updates usually daily or more often, mixed in with other Tweets about Phuket, but nothing about what I had for breakfast or about 4square, promise. And to see what the weather is doing right NOW, at least during daylight hours, check the webcams at Karon Beach and Surin Beach.