Today's weather;
It's cloudy outside over Koh Samui but it's dry at the moment with just very little rain expected until the afternoon. The cloud cover is supposed not to be that strong anymore and it may break up at some stage, later today. Current temp at 7am is 25C
Since yesterday all schools have opened again around Koh Samui and we should really have seen the last of the January 2017 floods.
Update at 9am, it's been partially cloudy, there were some small openings in the cloud cover with blue spots to be seen. Nothing to get too excited about but it's a start!
Update at 9am, it's been partially cloudy, there were some small openings in the cloud cover with blue spots to be seen. Nothing to get too excited about but it's a start!
Koh Samui, Thailand daily weather update; 11th January, 2017; As explained below, around 5pm we had very hard rain yesterday for an hour to an hour and a half which caused massive flash floods around the island since everything on the island is filled to the max with rain water. In Plai Laem water covered the roads to extents I never had seen before and was flowing down the road in massive streams. Within half an hour this massive flash flood was gone but many hot spots around the island were flooded again for a short while.
Yesterday saw a slightly wet morning with a variation of dry spells, drizzle and light rain. The afternoon was mostly dry until around 5pm when a thunderstorm passed over the island with very ahrd rain for an hour to hour and a half an light rain for at least another half hour. Due to the fact that the island is filled to the brim with rain water, some serious and very fast flash flooding occurred all around the island. The picture above shows the flash flood at Plai Laem. Within less than half an hour the worst flash floods were gone and it took a bit longer for the water to recede.
During yesterdays morning hours I ran a half marathon distance through many previously flooded hot spots and I could easily pass them without problems.
Max temp reached 27C yesterday
The forecasts predicts very light rain today during the morning and early afternoon after which the rain should have gone. According to the forecast, we should have partially clouded skies which implies that we may have sunshine as well later this week. We need to wait and see how this will pan out.
Let's hope it's now all behind us and done and over with.
After this coming weekend we may have some regular monsoon showers again, which hopefully will not cause any flash floods.
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Camille
19 comments:
I really reconsidering if I should spend our 10 days in Samui 21 until 30. Chec
Good luck with your decision Mario
Checking the weather forecast and like you said above seems that next week the monsoon are coming back again and I can clearly see that in these 10 days there will not be sunny days no even one day. is that quite unusual for January?
Still no sunny days expected for the next 10 days :-/
Very bad December/January on Koh Samui.
Cheers mate. I can't just understand how is that possible, all January will have just 2 days of sunshine and the others manly cloudy and rainy. It is always been like that?
Hi Mario,
First of all, January is at the outskirts of the monsoon season, so rain can be expected during this month. This is well documented on my blog over the past ten years, please have a look at my archives, half way down the page on my Samui info and weather blog, right hand side, they go back a few years. Open a month that you’re interested in and check one of the last posts of each month, starting with ‘Goodbye to…………’ this post will tell you the weather conditions for that month.
You can also check each individual post for that month if you wish to.
On top of that, forecast work with precipitations, even if there's only a 10% chance of rain, it will show a rainy icon for that day.
The % of rain expected next week is around 10-20mm per day, which is in no way like the 100 or more mm per day we recently had, this looks just like standard monsoon weather.
Hi Marcus,
Sorry to hear that you feel that way. Don't loose perspective though, this was the worst rain in 30 years to hit Southern Thailand, according to official government statements. That's something nobody expects, let alone predicts.
The local people and expats who rely on tourism, are also not really happy with the recent weather, this was supposed to be high season for them.
With all due respect, you go home and have a rained/washed out holiday, the locals and expats stay here and need to pick the pieces which is or was their livelihood.
As explained to Mario, the forecasts need to be interpreted in a certain way, please read my comment to him.
This was indeed not a great December or January, no doubt about it.
It depends however on what forecast you check and how you interpret them, I'm fairly confident that until the weekend the sun will break through over Koh Samui.
Once more, don't forget that January is also part of the monsoon season, what's coming after the weekend looks like standard monsoon rain. Nothing like the exceptional and unusual circumstances we just had.
Hi Mario,
Just two days of sunshine during January would be very unusual.
Hi Camille, I am new to your blog and facebook as of today and do appreciate the updates. I see and totally get it that its up to us to decide our travel plans. I will be in Samui from Jan 18 to 24 and not changing my plans. But we have a 6 month old baby and just wonder what the weather will be like as any normal traveller would but moreso with a little one. We are at Chewang Centara resort and happy to hang around there most of the time. One question - are weather forecasts reliable in Samui (from my understanding of Phuket and other Thai places it is not really). As Mario states its going to be rainy all days while I'm there. I did check your update for Jan '16 and other than the one storm around Jan 25th ish it was nice most of Jan '16. What I understand from Thai "rainy days" is that its usually a few hours at most of rain during 9am to 6pm time, but that the rest would be mixture of clouds and sun? I guess I'm an optimist but would be keen to hear your thoughts so I can plan ahead.
Bill
Hi Bill,
Please read my previous here to the comments. In general you should be fine I think, the Centara Grand Beach Resort is an excellent choice and has plenty of options to offer to you, although most are sunny weather related.
The rain expected next week is a 'normal' monsoon rain and should indeed not be all day long.
Wherever I checked online even months ago before booking the holiday I read that January was a pretty good month with only 7 days of rain in average which it makes the 4th best month to visit Koh Samui in terms of weather
Well Mario,
We just had or certain parts pf the country are still in the wort floods since 30 years, experienced in Southern Thailand.
A terrible overlook that they weren't predicted in the forecasts.
We are going to be there for honeymoon from Jan 20th-27th. What are the odds that the forecasts are predicting more rain than there will actually be? Have the forecasts been accurate lately?
Hi Carlina,
The odds are that most forecast sites indeed exaggerate the amount of expected rain.
Any rain that is currently expected after this weekend is more likely to be along the 'normal' monsoon kind of rain. It will be interesting to see though how the drainage system will be able to handle this kind of rain.
Carlina and I seem to be in the same state of mind! My trip is Jan 18-24 so very close to hers. I am also seeing rain, cloud and thunderstorms for all 7 days of my trip but hoping it will be wrong. Am surprised how forecasts can be reliable after say 3-4 days outlook. Probably like her, we are just praying that we do get some pockets of sunshine on most days.
Hi Bill,
Forecasts tend to change a lot and are not always reliable.
Thanks Camille.
You're welcome Bill
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