Talking about the weather

[Gaybutton]

That may turn out to be quite a subject too. June is the beginning of Thailand's rainy season. That's not the problem. The problem is this year's summer weather pattern appears to be a La Niña pattern rather than El Niño.

The last time a serious drought morphed into a La Niña pattern was 2011. 2011 was the year Thailand experienced those terrible floods. I've been seeing weather forecasts predicting the same thing could happen again this year, and coupled by global warming nobody knows just what might happen.

After the 2011 flood disaster the powers-that-be (or perhaps a better way to put it is 'powers-that-were') assured the country steps would be taken to make sure such a disaster can never happen again. Meanwhile, as far as I know the total amount of any significant work done to prevent another flood disaster - to date is zero. None at all. Nothing. I hope I'm wrong about that, but I have not seen or read even one news article that convinces me anything substantial was ever done. To my knowledge, not even anything insubstantial was ever done.

That is what could happen, and the scary part is the forecasts predicting just that. Imagine that - a drought so severe that nearly everything in the affected provinces dried up - lakes, streams, reservoirs - you name it. And if the gloomy weather predictions turn out to be correct, that could be followed by severe flooding.

Both Bangkok and Pattaya have had a few rains within the past couple weeks, but so far nothing that lasted more than 45 minutes or so and nothing damaging - yet. A Thai friend in Surin reported thunderstorms there too. Nothing damaging there either, although several areas lost their electricity for a few hours.

Sooner or later Pattaya will be hit by heavy rains. Despite the promises that flooding will be under control, why do I think that is unlikely to be the case? I can hardly wait for the Sukhumvit tunnel to be finished. I hope it will not end up being a temporary swimming pool and I hope nobody will be trapped and drowned. But even if the tunnel won't get a drop of water, guess where it exits - right where Sukhumvit notoriously floods, sometimes even in relatively light rains.

Oh well - at least we all know weather predictions often have a way of turning out to be wrong. I hope that will be true of the doom-and-gloom predictions. But if I were you, once the frequent rains really kick in I'd at least have an umbrella handy.

[Maple]

There was a downpour in Pattaya tonight about 23:00.