When Does the rainy season start is one of the most frequently asked questions about the climate here in the Koh Chang Islands. It’s not an exact science but this tale gives you a few pointers.
Early last Sunday morning, we experienced an electrical storm here on Koh Chang that would have given the surface of Jupiter a decent run for its money. Light-bulbs self illuminated. Plates jumped off draining boards. Claps of thunder were loud enough to remind you of your own utter inconsequentiality.
One particular almighty pop, the kind you get when something electrical shorts – only amplified Reading Festival style – sounded very ominous. Sure enough, once things had calmed down, one part of daily life was missing – the internet.
Our connection is delivered by way of a tower which broadcasts the data by wifi to a receiver on your roof and down to your modem. It’s a clever system used for rural areas and a lot cheaper than cabling up each and every home out in the sticks.
Unfortunately, this time, the tower worked in a different way than envisaged by those telecommunications wizards. It became instead a terrifically efficient conduit to the little building that sits underneath it, the one housing all the beeps and whistles. Put simply, the bang we heard was the whole lot up blowing up, lock stock and truly smoking barrel.
When Date does the Rainy Season Start?
Such electrical calamities are a reliable way of confirming the rainy season is upon us, but everyone has a differing view on this. It’s not like it has an official date and good natured disagreements break out the moment the subject comes up.
A friend of ours swears it begins in mid April at Songkran, as more often than not, there is rain over that holiday period. Of course, he is just wrong, plain wrong, as anyone with any sense knows the rainy season start is at the end of May.
That’s apart from another good friend who annually announces the rains kick off at the end of June. Well, he’s wrong too, that’s way too late, the rains have been steady for weeks by then…as we all know.
Local Thai Opinion
On being asked his opinion, our landlord comes back with the mantra, ja maa, ja luu, translated as when it comes, you’ll know. It’s the sort of typically all knowing yet hedge-betting kind of reply you would expect from a Thai farmer.
His wife, meanwhile, like us, quite rightly goes with the end of May, sense at last it seems. Though it might be she simply misunderstood our Thai and assumed the question concerned durians, where the end of May would be a good answer whatever the question.
Our neighbours opposite, normally a conservative couple who don’t go in for strong views are now adamant that rainy season start is on June 8th (last Sunday). They lost one of those 46” latest edition plasma screens during the same storm.
To put the matter to rest for another year, we will stick our necks out and declare once more the rainy season start is at the end of May. Our sound reasoning for this lies in the fact that the orchard dogs stink like only wet dogs can and have smelt like this for at least a couple of weeks.
Back to Features/Weather Seasons
