Sunshine and Smiles. What rain?

Well, the heavy rain and strong winds from last week has been all but forgotten. The last update on the Phuket weather blog had people worried! Rain? Floods? Yeh, it was a bit horrible for a few days, and the first week of June had nearly 300mm of rainfall! But flooded roads in Phuket soon drain away to the sea. Normally only lasts a day at most, and I was driving to and from Karon Beach on those wet days without too much difficulty - it's 20km from my house to Karon, I live near Phuket Town. I do try to report the true weather here and not gloss over things, but I almost wish I had not posted "dramatic" photos of minor floods, which to outsiders might look serious. I even had a comment asking where relief funds could be sent! Good question actually - anyone wants to send "relief funds" - click here. Actually, that's my beer fund... essential for keeping the blogs up and running :)

This whole week has been sunny. Saturday (9th June) I got sunburned shoulders working around our house, doing a lot of cleaning up. Wind and rain do make a mess of the garden. Various creatures had come to hide around the house due to the rains. I had to dispatch 2 big black scorpions and a small cobra which were hiding under plant pots. We've never had any major problem with critters, but (sorry, animal lovers) I tend to take no chances. They get splatted before they might have a chance to hurt our kids.



(above) View over Karon Beach on Monday 11th June. Weather : perfect, but look at the waves. Still quite a surf there, though it's got calmer during the week. Again I want to say - DON'T swim if you see big waves. Just this week, another drowning. Young American student drowned off Patong on Tuesday night. Quite why he decided on a night swim, I don't know. Being on holiday sometimes gives people a feeling that nothing can happen. Hard to see red flags at night and no lifeguards on duty.

At Karon, new signs have been erected along the beach road. Warning in 7 languages.



A great week for sun-worshippers. I've not seen a drop of rain. It all fell last week! The picture below is a screengrab from the Patong Beach Webcam on Wednesday...



This is more like the low season! What I say is true. Most of the time the weather is good, or least OK. A few people doubted me last week, bad luck if last week was your holiday, it IS low season, so there WILL BE rain. Last week was freaky though, some of the worst weather I have seen in 12 years. Low season is unpredictable, but to be honest so is high season! You can have rain in December or March. Back in 2009, June was one of the driest months of the year! At least in low season you can be sure of cheap hotels! So I am hoping tomorrow (Saturday) will be just as good.. my day off and we'd like to take a family day out to Koh Yao Noi island. This good weather better hold for 1 more day!