We’re melting over here. We’ve stopped hitting 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit) like we were doing earlier this month, but we’re still reaching 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) easily, and don’t EVEN get me started on the humidity.
This is always the hottest time of year, our summer. No relief until the rains return around June. The wife and I are trying to hold out just one more month, when we’ll be in Beijing and Shanghai and hopefully experience some nice springtime weather.
I empathize and I hope that you’re able to stay in ACed areas. That’s what I loved about MBK, JJ Mall and Central/Robinson/Tesco-Lotus when I was in Thailand - the AC and non-smogginess. At least you’re there for mankut/mangosteen season. I had to leave right when they were coming into season, and luckily, as it was getting hotter (April 8th).
Try to stay cool with those ice-cold fruits from the carts and the yummy drinks they sell on the streets.
Update: Yesterday (Wednesday) was the hottest day in Thaiand in 47 years. The temperature was recorded at 44 degrees Celsius in Tak province; that’s 111.2 degrees Fahrenheit. The highest ever recorded officially in Thailand was 44.5C (112.1F), in Uttaradit province on April 27, 1960.
I know I mentioned 45C (113F) in other postings. That’s what the BBC said early this month, and I believe it. These recodings below are all official, but who knows where they’re taken. I truly believe we’ve been hitting 45C. Where I grew up in that small city in Texas, the official temp was always taken at the airport, which was out in the middle of nowhere north of the city; it was much hotter in town.
See below (and I’ve always found it amusing that the word “tak” basically translates to “dried in the sun”):
Mercury hits 44C in Tak as Thailand has its hottest day in 47 years
Temperatures yesterday soared to 44 degrees Celsius in Tak province, making it the hottest day in Thailand in 47 years.
Meteorological Department statistics indicate the highest temperature ever recorded in Thailand was 44.5C, in Uttaradit province on April 27, 1960. That was followed the very next day by 43.9C recorded in Udon Thani province. Tak saw 43.7C in 1983 and 43.5C in 2004.
Tak Weather Bureau chief Somsong Duanmai said the mercury had regularly gone past 40C in the northern province since the start of this month. He said people now tried to avoid going outdoors, except when they cooled down in rivers. - The Nation.
Penchan: Yes, AC is essential now. The wife and I usually sleep year-round with the bedroom windows open and an electric fan running, but we’re closing the windows now and running the AC at night. Too hot round-the-clock.
BTW: You mentioned MBK Center. There was a small fire on the 7th floor there last Saturday about 1pm, and they had to evacuate the entire building. I understand it caused quite a panic, and all the cars trying to leave the carpark at once caused a major traffic jam in the street outside. It was an electrical short in an oven fan in Daidomon Restaurant. I know it was closed the rest of the day, but it must have reopened by now, probably the next day. Funny, but we were close by at the time, watching Pan’s Labyrinth at the Lido Theater in Siam Square, and we knew nothing about it until we returned home and watched the news.
Yahoo Weather shows the temp at 11am this morning (Thursday) as 90 degrees Fahrenheit but “feels like 97.” Odd, though, that it predicts the high for today as 90F and we’ve already hit it at 11. Will be much hotter this afternoon. And where do they get this “low of 79” nonsense? I doubt we’ve seen 79 since February!
Wow, I guess that shows how much of a farang I am! I need the AC running so the room is room temperature otherwise I can’t sleep. Thai heat is too much for me.
You’re so lucky! Whenever I visit Thailand, I practically live in MBK. It’s the best of Jatujak market, but in an ACed building! I can find no wrong with MBK, especially now that they’ve got clean, westernized bathrooms for just 1 baht. I’m terribly spoiled - I need my western toilet.
Actually, it’s a nickname in Japanese. I’m technically Thai. My Chinese grandparents (both sides) and parents were born and raised in Thailand. I’ve been going there at least twice a year since I was four, I’m 24 now. Sadly, I am still very much a farang as I don’t speak Thai all that well. It gives the locals a kick when I speak my limited vocabulary, “koh toht ka, hong nahm yoo nai, ka?”. Yes, lots of laughing indeed.
<hijack>My mom has just retired and is trying to sell the house she bought in Pattaya ten years ago. She wants to clean the old house, sell it and find another house closer to the rest of the family in Bangkok as her retirement home. I’ve been trying to get her to stay here for one more month because I know it’s too hot for her if she went now. No matter what she says, she’s American when it comes to the weather and the insane Thai heat will do bad things to her health. She even gets Thai channels here and sees that there are even people dying from the heat. But does that deter her? Noooo…</hijack>
MBK is okay, been going there for years, but we tend to like The Emporium better. MBK is so crowded! And it doesn’t have any bookshops at all, while The Emporium has both Asia Books and Kinokuniya. I like the Kinokuniya branch there better even than the one in Siam Paragon; Siam Paragon’s is billed as the largest branch of their’s in Southeast Asia, and while that may be true, they’ve filled the space up with Thai-language textbooks and the like. The Emporium branch is much better, and the shopping center is less crowded.
And if it’s toilets you’re after, The Emporium has some nice ones, especially up by the cinema.
We had a big freak thunderstorm Thursday evening that cooled things off for a while. Very unusual for this time of year, but I guess the intense heat and humidity combined to cause something. Almost lunchtime Friday now, though, and heating back up.
If this whole global warming thing goes the way they say it’s going to go, I don’t think living in some of the hottest places on earth is the way to go.
I’m moving to Canada.
We had ANOTHER thunderstorm tonight. Another big one. This is very bizarre weather for this time of year. These are not monsoon rains; the monsoons don’t return for maybe another couple of months. It must be the brutal heat and humidity working in concert.
And damned annoying it was, too. It hit right after I got off the Skytrain to go to the bars in Soi Cowboy. I was trapped! Because who in their right mind carries an umbrella during the dry season? The Skytrain station for Soi Cowboy is Asoke Station, which is one of the two Skytrain connections to the subway. The way down into the subway from the Skytrain is covered, and you can cross the street underground that way and pop up close to Soi Cowboy on the other side. I was able to cross the street that way. But the rain was so heavy that I couldn’t even make a dash for Soi Cowboy without getting soaked. All I could do was peer out from below ground and listen to the beers calling my name. I’ll tell ya, the Third World can be brutal at times.
Those are shade temperatures, right? What sort of temperature are you getting when outside in the sun? I can’t imagine what anything above 40 is like. Anything above 32-33 and I can’t function properly.
This is why people are always surprised at how pale we local farangs (Westerners) are when they see us, even though we live in the tropics. We stay indoors where there’s AC ALL the time.
Update: The heat has been broken by a series of heavy daily thunderstorms for the past four or five days. These rains are NOT the monsoon returning. No one knows where they’ve come from. I suspect the brutal heat and intense humidity just combined to make it happen. Feels a LOT better now, though, so if this is global warming, I’ll take more of it. I love the rain. They say global warming will result in these weird weather patterns.
