Koh Samui, Thailand daily weather update; 29th March, 2011

Today's weather;

Samui is waking up under very dark clouds and is about to assess last nights torrential rain damage. Just over 400mm came down over the last 24 hours and 90mm between 1 and 4am. There will be damage to roads and buildings, I just hope it all will be within limits and reason.

Current temp at 7am is still 25C

The tendency is that all long term residents have never experienced anything like the current floods, even the November 2010 floodings were not as bad as the current situation.

The water levels in front of our house on the road between Plai Laem and Choengmon have never been as high as they are now. A lot of problems are caused because the water is 'boxed' in and can't follow it's natural flow to the ocean because of too much construction blocking the way to the ocean.

There are power cuts all over the island, so land phone lines won't work and the batteries on mobile phones will be getting very low soon or are dead already. The power cuts are either genuinely because of over load and are partly on purpose in order to avoid electrocutions. The spaghetti wire above the roads doesn't really look too re-assuring.

Max temp yesterday didn't get any higher than 26.5C

The current prediction is about another 80mm of rain for Samui and surrounding islands until 7pm today and than it's supposed to ease off with sun and no waves and wind starting from Friday onwards.

Good luck to everybody on Samui, hope it will be all good again very soon!

The situation on Koh Phangang and Koh Tao is not looking good, especially Koh Tao seems to have had some serious battering with plenty of structural damage and they must be running low on food and especially drinking water by now. I don't expect the airport to open today, due to wind and rain.

The overall situation in the South of Thailand is very bad, see the chart below. The current death toll is nine. The Nation resports; Flood waters are now wreaking havoc in the provinces of Chumphon, Nakhon Si Thammarat, Surat Thani, Trang, Krabi and Phatthalung.

To date, 13 districts of Surat Thani have been declared disaster zones, with the inundation having damaged four bridges, 11 roads and two temples.

Education Minister Chinnaworn Boonyakiat said the flooding had damaged 613 schools in Trang, Krabi, Nakhon Si Thammarat, Surat Thani, Songkhla and Phatthalung.

Bangkok Airways cancelled all 36 domestic and international flights in and out of Samui yesterday, due to the severe thunderstorms hitting the island and the surrounding area. It said affected passengers should contact its ticketing office to rebook their flights at no additional charge.

Meanwhile, just as the floods have been raging in the South, PM's Office Minister Satit Wongnongtaey said 47 other provinces were suffering from drought.

Chaweng ring road

Bophud

Koh Lanta's sky is also dark and grey but the amount of rainfall here is just a fraction of what came down in other parts of Thailand. Current temp at 7am is 25.5C an yesterday's max temp reached 27.6C.

Yesterday saw some heavy rain but nothing serious. 'Just' 45mm of rain in 24 hours. All dive boats were cancelled yesterday though and I'm not sure if the dive boats will run today. As far as I know the car ferries are still running.

A next updated is not expected before noon since I'm conducting and IDC on Lanta and won't have time to be online that much.

Keep hitting the right buttons though to upgrade my beer allowance and if you plan on booking hotels on Samui or around Thailand, please use the links provided, all bookings through these sites will help me make more beer money!

Camille