The Phuket weather blog is a very useful resource for Phuket weather information. The blog has been running for 4 ½ years, so you have 4 ½ years of weather reports on this blog, easily found by using the "Phuket Weather Archives 2006 - 2010" link, top left of the page. Monthly reports, all done in my own style, with photos, places we've visited, news, rainfall figures... and also on the left of the page are links to many useful things like webcams, weather radar, satellite photos, wind predictions, several forecasts and much more. With the reports you can get an idea of what the weather was like, I have rainfall data going back 11 years too, and the webcams are great for showing the weather right NOW! But especially at this time of year, don't ask me what the weather will do tomorrow or next week!

The seasons are changing and it seems that if I update the weather blog and say "It's raining", you can guarantee next day will be sunny. If I update with "It's sunny", next day will be wet. So it is this week! The "low season" is ending, the winds are changing, and soon it will be (meteorologically) high season. The name "high season" does not mean "no rain" - November can often be quite wet, though December - February are on average very dry. Low season has plenty of sun too, ah it's all mixed up! Last update (24th October) was all sunshine... and then of course on the 26th and 27th it was quite wet. And then today (28th) sunny again. What can we deduce from this? Weather forecasting is a fools errand!

So, anyway, yes, the high season is coming. Worry ye not about the weather.

And now, the news.... The Phuket Vegetarian festival has just ended, you can find lots of photos on my Phuket Blog and on my Flickr Photos. Love this festival. And I am happy to say, someone found my photos and my blog and put them on a quite important website - France24.com - a news site with stories in French and English, and a section they call "Observateurs" / "Observers" with stories from contributors around the world. Well, someone at France 24 saw my blog and put up this story in French:

• Festival végétarien de Phuket @ France24.com

Merci Ségolène!

And next day it was all translated into English :)

• Phuket's Bloody Vegetarian festival



High season means I get busy, as manager of Sunrise Divers @ Karon Beach in Phuket. Low season we are not exactly swamped, there is less to do, but high season, some days are a blur! We sell liveaboards, PADI courses, day trips, overnight trips... anyone want to dive? Come to see me, I will be there every day except one day off at the weekend. My next holidays will be end of April! It started getting busy last week. Let's Dive!

Who'd be a weather forecaster? I mean, you should be able to see big storms coming, right Michael? But daily weather here in Phuket, especially in low season, you may as well pin the tail on a donkey or consult the cards. I mean, it's low season, so people do expect rain, and on average October is the wettest month of all. It was all going well for a while, lots of predictably rainy days, but the last week has been almost all sunshine, albeit still a little windy - still getting a few seasick divers here and there :)

The vegetarian festival ended a few days ago on the 17th, and I have been busy sorting out photos and writing some blog pages about this years festival. The last weather blog update a week ago was on the 15th October after I'd been to Kathu shrine in the early morning for the start of their procession to town. A grey morning and the participants in the procession would have got wet later on. Here's a quick photo from the morning as statues of the gods were carried through the streets of Kathu village:



On the 16th I was back at Kathu shrine, another slightly grey day but did not rain - if it had rained would have been a shame as it would have put the fire out. Did not get much in the way of great photos - it was very crowded at the shrine, and the best I can say is that I know where NOT to stand next time! Best of the bunch:



And then just as the festival ended, it seemed that the weather improved. This week has been very sunny, lots of blue skies, but still quite big waves at some of the beaches. A couple of people have drowned - I urge people to read this: Please Don't Drown in Phuket. It may be sunny and the sea may look inviting but please note that the sea is stronger than you, and please note that Thailand does not have the same amazing lifeguards that you find on Australian beaches, and David Hasselhoff certainly ain't here.

Sunny skies led to a few busy days in the dive shop this week. Sure you can dive on a cloudy day too and many divers are fairly pragmatic - rain? so what? you're going to get wet anyway! High season IS just about here, but after a sunny week I would not be surprised to get another burst of wet days next week. And the 'Windguru' forecast backs this up - see here. Also looks like the prevailing winds will start to shift next week - I am seeing a North East arrow for next Sunday. You often get very mixed weather while the winds sort themselves out. Once a NE wind starts, things get much drier.

This weekend - yesterday was sunny, we headed to the Big Buddha as my wife's cousin was visiting. Did not realise it was "Wan Ok Phansa" - the end of the Buddhist Lent. It was packed full of people up at the Buddha, and the road going up was busy, although seems we were late, as most of the traffic was going down. Wan Ok Phansa also marks the end of the rainy season. This day is obviously very important to Burmese people as many of those at the Buddha were Burmese.

Nevertheless I did get the camera out for a Buddha photo:





So, forecast: Unsettled - seasons change this week, winds all mixed up, gotta be some rain.

The last update on the 9th was during a little dry spell - no rain for 4 days after a very very wet day on the 5th. It was a dry start to the vegetarian festival which started on the 7th with ceremonies at the shrines to raise the "Go Teng" pole down which the gods descend. Since the 7th I have been eating the vegetarian diet, buying food from restaurants and stalls flying the yellow flags. Today is the 15th, so the 9th day. I could do with a beer and a burger to be honest but can survive another day!

The 10th (Sunday) was the first main street procession of the festival - there had been a small one on Saturday also, but Sunday was the turn of Sapam Shrine, which is about 7km north of Phuket Town. I was there by about 6:45am. Skies were a bit grey... no sunshine, but no rain either, just a bit dull for nice photos. I stayed at the shrine for 45 minutes or so until the procession left to walk all the way into town.





• More photos of Sapam Shrine, Vegetarian festival on Flickr

After the 10th it got wet and windy. We've had divers signing up for dive courses at Sunrise Divers, let's hope next time they go diving it will be nicer weather. Rough seas and rain, not ideal for scuba, not ideal for much really! Well, it has to happen some time. The year has been pretty dry so far. And October is on average the wettest month. We're only halfway and already October has seen more rain than September.

Monday was a wet day but the early morning looked OK, so I was once again at a shrine, this time Sam Kong, which is on the northern edge of Phuket Town about 2km from the centre. Again, not sunny, and I think I'd have got wet had I followed the procession into town.



• More photos from Sam Kong Shrine, 11th October on Flickr

The rain has been heavy at times but also lots of light drizzle. Tuesday was grey all day, but Wednesday morning (13th) was great. I planned to be in Phuket Town by 7am for one of the big vegetarian festival processions from Bang Neow shrine which is in town. Weather looked unpromising at 6am but cleared up for a couple of hours and during the procession the sun did shine. Nice! Mind you, later it P*SSED down and in fact Wednesday was one of the wettest days of the year... I measured 72mm of rain! Which makes the sunny morning all the more special...





• More photos of the Bang Neow Shrine procession on Flickr (including some rather bloody ones :))

Still windy yesterday and another inch of rain. Today also wet.. (dashes out to shed to check) .. trusty rain gauge says 43mm so far. Rain is measured approx 8am - 8am. This morning was again grey and drizzly but I went to my local shrine in Kathu to try and get some more photos of mutilation and to try my new Canon 50mm F1.8 lens. Have not sorted out photos from this morning yet. Well, OK, here's one...



Hoping for a drier Saturday as I have a day off work and hope to go to Kathu Shrine again to see fire walking in the afternoon. For now, good night from a wet Phuket. I hope for plenty more rain in the next 2 weeks so we might have a nice dry November :)

October, according to my Rainfall averages is the wettest month in Phuket, with September in 2nd place. Well, September 2010 has been relatively dry, only 225mm rain measured compared to an average of 372mm. My parents were visiting from the 14the onwards and we had very little poor weather, certainly the weather never made us change any plans. The last couple of posts on the blog show that we visited all kind of places. The skies may have been a bit grey some days, but that's fine by me - stops it from being too hot!

Life is now kind of back to normal after the holidays. I was back at work yesterday ready for the high season in the dive shop. Mum and Dad left on Tuesday back to sunny England. After a busy holiday (I have a backlog of things to blog now!), we had a couple of very lazy days at home. The last few days of my parents holidays included a visit to the Phuket Butterfly Garden and Insect World. We have been before but it was a while ago, and it has been expanded, quite impressive actually. And if you like butterflies, you'll love it!





On the same day we went for a coffee at Tunk Ka cafe on Rang Hill in Phuket Town. And then dinner on the sand at The Beach Bar - on the way there it was raining but when we arrived the last few drops scattered and we even had a kind of sunset.



On the 4th we had a little walk in Phuket Town, again, sky was not all blue, but there was no rain. Brunch at the Kaewjai restaurant, a little shopping in the Expo market, a banana Roti on Thalang Road...



After all the good, or at least decent weather, the day my parents flew home was one of the wettest of the year! I measured 71mm of rain on the 5th! But hardly a drop in the 3 days since that. The Phuket Vegetarian festival started on the evening of the 7th. Like last year I will try to stick to the diet for 10 days, eating only specially prepared food, no meat, no dairy, no garlic or onions either for some reason to do with strong flavour.. and no alcohol. We all went to the local shrine in Kathu on Thursday evening. I have put some photos on Flickr.

• Kathu Shrine, 7th October (slideshow)





The big street processions in the festival started today. I set my alarm for 6am, but turned it off and turned over. Processions start early and if you want to really get a feel for this festival, it's worth going early. So, maybe I will do that tomorrow.

• Phuket Vegetarian festival 2010 Schedule
• Phuket Vegetarian Festival Photos 2009

There are always lots of fireworks for sale around this time. Kids all over the place are throwing firecrackers and bangers and unlike "back home" there is little control. I bought a few little fireworks in the village for our kids, but dad had control of the lighter! They enjoyed waving sparklers around, and I enjoyed trying to get some photos...

October has arrived. I have been having a little holiday over the last 10 days, mostly in Phuket, but we managed a 2 night trip to Khao Sok national park, staying at the Cliff and River Jungle Resort where we have stayed before and plan to stay again.

Weather... yep, guess I should update more often, but the last week with my parents here and kids on school holidays, I have preferred to actually live life than blog it! Hardly even looked at Facebook, and I have not even Tweeted since September 25th! But anyway .. if you want to know the latest weather, you can try the Karon Beach webcam, or the quite reliable Windguru weather forecast, or any of the useful links on the left side of the page.

My summary of the last week: Not Bad. A very English expression. We seem unable to say "Good". If someone asks "How was your trip?", the answer is "Not Bad". Or if asked "How are you today?", the English will answer "Not Bad". Hey, September and October should be the wettest months of the year, so anything better than "Wet and Horrible" is good for me!

I have been busy the last week with family. Mum and Dad were already here, and then cousin Simon arrived on Friday 25th. I guess I last saw cousin Simon in about 1998. We made sure he saw as much as possible in the 4 days he was here, and then on Wednesday 29th we dropped him at the airport and the rest of us drove to Khao Sok. No rest for the wicked! I will add some photos below soon showing the last week. Plenty of sun, I got a nice tan in the pool on Thursday :) Rain? Yes, lots of that in Khao Sok, although for the 3 days from 29th September - 1st October, my home rain gauge showed only 22mm.

A quick photo diary of the last week in and around Phuket ...

24th September, evening, walk around Kathu village. These guys were all sat in the shine, maybe discussing the vegetarian festival that starts on the 7th October ...



25th September, we visited the Big Buddha. Not been up for a while. It's getting more commercialised, but no entry fees (yet) and the views are as good as ever.



27th September, we headed up to Phang Nga Bay. Lunch at Samchong Seafood, then we hired a longtail boat to get to Koh Panyee and James Bond Island (Khao Ping Kan). We did a very similar trip in March but this time we planned to get to James Bond Island late afternoon. Trick worked. We got there around 4:30pm. We were the only visitors. Yeh, weather was a bit grey, but we avoided any rain despite the clouds and occasional thunder :)



• Phang Nga Bay Tour on Jamie's Phuket Blog

Tuesday 28th, a great tour in Old Phuket Town with 2 Phuket natives, Pu and Gan who have formed a company called Phuket Heritage Trails. Anyone wanting to know about the real Phuket... I suggest contacting them. I have written about the walk on my Phuket blog : Tour of Phuket Town. Weather on 28th - cloudy, a bit of sun, hot day actually ... especially when walking several miles around town.



And then we headed to Khao Sok for 2 nights at the Cliff and River Jungle Resort. The Khao Sok national park is east of Takua Pa, which is about 130km north of Phuket, and as mentioned before, has way more rain. Average in Phuket is 2500mm per year. In Takua Pa, you get 3500mm per year. Rain in Khao Sok is pure tropical. We arrived on Wednesday and it was still a bit sunny, slightly cloudy. Rained in the late afternoon. Thursday - started all misty and cloudy, cleared up for a few hours of amazing sun, pool time and sunburn. Then pissed down all afternoon!



(above) I could see this tree on the mountain from our balcony



(above) Bungalow at the resort, my daughter and friend on the balcony



(above) RAIN! A very rainy afternoon on September 30th, as you'd expect in the rainforest!

Oh, and finally: Some good news... The Beach Bar is open for high season! Our favourite place. Weather not perfect. We went this evening, rained on the way and the west wind was noticeable, but we stayed dry. Will go again tomorrow or the next day if weather looks better.

Welcome to October :)