The busy tourist season continues in Phuket! I think I had a day off somewhere last weekend, but it's all a blur really ... The weather? Pretty much perfect all week. I mean, it's January, high season and (on average) the 2nd driest month of the year after February. I could write a one word blog entry for January 19th - 26th: Nice. But it's not so simple! Weather had been good last week save for a few drips of rain. Last Saturday I was looking forward to a day off in the sun. We planned a drive off Phuket to some waterfalls in Phang Nga. Unfortunately, Saturday (my only day off) did not play ball. As we left home, skies were darkening. OK, not to worry, rain is normally very localised, we're heading north, the skies will be blue!

WRONG! We drove north through heavy rain, and although the rain eased, there was plenty of dark cloud to the east as we crossed the Sarasin Bridge... we decided against waterfalls and explored some back roads near the bridge and visited the 360 Degree Cafe just a few km over the other side of the bridge.



(above) Wet drive on January 21st

We stopped to buy some pineapples. Just over the Phang Nga side of the bridge on the northbound side of the road you can see this:



And in the evening, we headed into Phuket Town for a walk. Thalang Road in the old town was strung with lanterns for Chinese New Year...



Chinese New Year was on January 23rd. It's now the year of the Dragon, which is very symbolic for Phuket. The Chinese belief is that Phuket island is a sea dragon called Hai Long Eng. On the 23rd in the night there was a big Chinese New Year event at Sanam Chai, a park in the north of Phuket Town near the government offices. We went to have a look ...





Weather was dry again, and the evening air a little cool (in Phuket terms, about 24 degrees C is cool!). At lunchtime on the 25th, I took a quick walk to Karon Beach - it was HOT and quite crowded at the beach. Most tourists like to sit in the sun and get burned in the middle of the day. I prefer late afternoon, not so hot.



And now the amazing news ... all this sun, perfect days... and yeh, some rain on Saturday and some rain in the night a few times. January is normally drier than this, and according to my rain gauge this is the wettest January since at least 1999 (I have data back to 1999)! How can it be the wettest when the weather is this good? It only takes a few heavy showers .. even if most of the month is sunny.

The Chalong Temple Fair started a couple of days ago, and runs until 29th January, well worth a visit if you are here. I have stopped there at Chalong Temple on the way home from work the last 2 nights...





Also this week - the Phuket Local Food Fair is on until 29th January, you can find this at Sapan Hin, in the south of Phuket Town. AND the Phuket Old Town Festival happens from 28th - 30th January. We'll be heading into town on Saturday 28th for sure .. maybe Sunday too .. and Monday! Always lots of things going on in Phuket! I have another day off on Saturday - sun, please!

At this time of year, just a summary of the week's weather is enough. Phuket in January - if you get bad weather you are very very unlucky! On average, January and February are the driest months. We have had some light rain. Actually, my rain gauge told me that 20mm fell on our house on the night of the 16th, though it went unnoticed by a sleeping family. Yesterday we even had some light rain during the day. No surprise really, the morning started very very hot.. heat causes water to evaporate, water vapour condenses at higher altitude (cooler temperature) and there's your rain. My home rain gauge said 10mm by the end of the day, nothing to write home about, but sometimes in high season I see shocked tourist faces when it rains ... OMG! Rain! Horror! The brochure said sun!

Yeh, we got sun, too. On Sunday I just caught the sunset at Kata Beach. Sunset is a bit before 6:30pm right now. Sunrise like 6:45am, meaning that on a school day, with the alarm set for 6am, we're waking up in the dark for early morning coffee before waking the kids. Anyway .. I took a few photos on Sunday. Nice.







Yeh, it was nice. I want to be on holiday in Phuket! For me right now, it's high season, busy in the dive shop (Sunrise Divers Phuket)... a day off is a luxury! Actually, a 15 minute walk on the beach at sunset is a luxury! Since Sunday, I have been in the dive shop until 7pm each day, so no more sunsets .. It has been hot, lots of blue skies, lots of sun, the winds have dropped. I reckon I might have to squeeze in a dive trip next week sometime!

Last photo - I took it this afternoon - there is a small Chinese shrine just outside our dive shop in Karon Place, just a few minutes walk from Karon Beach ...



I saw the last rays of sun shining onto the face of the statue.. It's Chinese New Year on 23rd January. Some events coming up include the Chalong Temple Fair from 23rd - 29th January and the Phuket Old Town Festival from 28th - 30th.

More sun please!

Having just blogged a review of Phuket Weather 2011, it's time to blog about the weather now - January in Phuket is generally quite dry, it's peak season for tourism too. Average rainfall in January is just over 30mm for the whole month, it's the second driest month on average after February. Well we've actually exceeded the average already according to my rain gauge - had some rain in the night on the 1st and again on the 7th, plus a bit yesterday and today. But aside from a few showers, and most of that in the night, January so far has been fabulous!

Yeh, there was rain in the night on Saturday (7th) but the day - excellent... hot and sunny with blue skies, perfect! Our kids had a maths class, so my wife and I took a little drive into Phuket Town to drop off a laptop for repair and then on the way back through town, my wife asked "have you ever been to this temple?" ... and somehow despite the fact that I like to blog lots of Phuket temples, I found myself at a new place, and WoW!



(above) Khao Rang Temple in Phuket Town

Later on we headed for a late lunch at a favourite restaurant on the beach at Cape Panwa, south of Phuket Town. Perfect afternoon :)



Every other day since then at work, but if you Follow me on Twitter, there are (almost) daily weather Tweets ...

8th January "hot and sunny with clear blue skies again :)"

9th January "Phuket weather this morning - yes, sunny again :) Enjoy the day, everyone!"

10th January "It's another lovely sunny morning in Phuket :)"

11th January "Yes, another sunny day in Phuket"

The Tweets don't lie, it has been a beautiful week until today which was grey with some rain. Quite nice to have a cooler day for us locals.

Coming up soon .. advance notice... 23 - 29 January is the Chalong Temple Fair, well worth a visit. And 28 - 30 January the Phuket Old Town Festival. These events are mostly in the evening. Just in case it's not obvious... Chalong Temple Fair takes place at Chalong Temple and the Old Town Festival takes place in Old Phuket Town.

If this was a blog about Thailand weather, then the word of the year would be FLOODS. There were big floods in March, mostly on the east coast centered around Surat Thani, Nakhorn Sri Thammarat, Songkhla, also Chumphon, Krabi ... And at the same time there was drought in the Northeast of Thailand! Phuket was not affected so much - some small floods here and there, but nothing that lasted more than a day or 2 and nothing serious. March had actually started very hot and sunny - I recorded rainfall on only 6 out of the first 20 days. But the last 11 days were different! We sure did have some heavy rain. I have rain data back to 1999, and we had way more rain in March 2011 than any previous year. More than 400mm recorded - the average is not much more than 100mm.

Here's the 2011 Phuket Rainfall Chart...



As you can see, March (month 3 in case you didn't know) sticks out a mile! January and February pretty dry although January was wetter than normal thanks to a 5 day rainy period in mid-month when most of the monthly rain fell. Most of that was in the night, the days were all blue skies and sunshine :)

April and May both had less rain than average. April was of course very hot as usual. I escaped Phuket for a while and headed to the east coast town of Chumphon for Songkran. Very hot there too, but a bit of cold water will cure that!



June and July, fairly normal, some rain, some sun, I actually like these months, despite a bit of rain there are also lots of sunny days. In July 2011 for example, only 12 days had rain, meaning 19 were dry. And even the rainy days are not normally rainy all day. A bit of rain doesn't hurt! We had a lovely day in June at the Splash Jungle Waterpark. It was sunny, then it rained, then the sun came out again, then it rained some more ...



August was quite a bit wetter than normal, but again the total rainfall of 441mm does not tell the whole story. In the first 18 days, only 2 days had any rain, with just 27mm falling. The end of the month was wet though! At the end of August I wrote on the blog "Tuesday morning and it's sunny! That's not really news, except I've not really seen any sun since last Tuesday!" - gotta take the rough with the smooth in low season! There were again some minor floods here and there but nothing to panic about.

September was average, certainly one of the wetter months in Phuket. 12 dry days in September 2011, but again please remember that a "wet day" does not mean "wet ALL day". Rain can fall in the night, can fall in a quick heavy shower or there may be some grey drizzly days. The photo below was taken on 22nd September at Kata Beach:



Worst period of 2011? The first 11 days of October. More than 500mm rain recorded at my house in that time. We can live with that, no floods at our house. Unfortunately it was when my parents were here from England! We still managed plenty of activity but put off some trips like Khao Sok and Phang Nga Bay. Rain does not last all day, but heading out on a longtail boat on those days did not appeal. The weather changed pretty much as my Mum and Dad left! The last day of their holiday was October 12th and we headed to Ya Nui Beach ...



And on the day they flew out, the 13th - lovely sunny day! In October, the word FLOODS! came back. Not in the south of Thailand this time... Lots of rain in central Thailand especially around Ayuthaya, north of Bangkok. And it was bad, and got worse and the floods headed down river to the capital. In Phuket? Nothing. November was nice. December was better. Sure we get some rain. Can rain any time, hopefully not like March 2011, but in high season some tourists are surprised to get rain. "The brochure said sun". But please realise that Phuket is in a tropical area. See all the green trees and green hills? They need rain. There is not a weather god turning off the tap on November 1st. Whatever time of year you come, you do have to be lucky with the weather. Sure, you can read the averages, and I can be fairly sure that January will be nicer than August, but you can get rain in January and you can get a week of unbroken sunny days in August.

On the left side of the page look for the "Weather Archives" drop down box - you can check all the posts on the Phuket weather blog back to 2006.

2012! Bring it on! By the way, weather now, January 2012 - very nice, thanks for asking - I will post an update in the next couple of days. And if you are coming to Phuket soon, please do check the Phuket Hotels at Agoda.com or my hotel reviews on Jamie's Phuket :)

Just a quick update... Weather in Phuket - hot and sunny with hardly any wind. It was a bit windy around Christmas but that has gone now. We did have a rather grey New Years Day, but New Years Eve was perfect. Our family (11 people) headed to Cape Panwa, a restaurant called The Beach Bar for New Years dinner and party. Good food, all the family, football on the beach, and fireworks too!



HAPPY NEW YEAR!

If you enjoy this blog, please do follow me on Twitter.. and check the "Jamie's Phuket" Blog which (just like this one) has been online since 2006 :)



The photo above was taken on New Years Eve. A "Kom Fai" lantern drifts up into the sky, the moon just about peeping out from the clouds. It did not rain, but the clouds did come in, and January 1st was rather cloudy all day. We took a drive over the Sarasin Bridge to Phang Nga province, and had prebooked lunch at Samchong Seafood restaurant. Weather was not the best, so we decided against a boat ride out to Koh Panyee and James Bond Island. Just enjoyed lunch in a quiet local environment ...



I was working yesterday, had a day off today (3rd January) and the weather today was HOT HOT HOT, enough to give me some nice red skin after working around our house. Yesterday started very wet actually, but the afternoon was nice. No major rain here, but in case anyone is reading the news, there is some flooding on the east coast of Thailand, especially in Chumphon and Surat Thani provinces. Nothing *too* serious .. but my wife's family live in Chumphon and their drive home from Phuket yesterday took 11 hours. Normally would take about 5 or 6 hours. Here in Phuket, no rain, hot, sunny. And long may it continue! Perfect weather. See you soon!