blueyeshk

It's beautiful to see a red sun in front of a yellow sky if you just switch your brain off. And the north is definitely inhabitable from February-may no need pics or data for that fact.

Just exit the airport door ,it hit me like a wall. It covered all my senses like I stand besides a bond fire - unfortunately had to return before heading abroad again to change some clothes. After a while u get used to it but the first moment was horrible. Out of here as soon as I got my things arranged . This can't be good.

I'm in Chiang Mai currently and pollution has got noticeably worse following Songkran. I'm not here that long, and in the meantime I am making use of an N95 mask.

Question - where in Thailand is my best chance of all year round decent air?

I'm thinking Pattaya/Jomtien, Hua Hin, Surat Thani and the Islands. Anywhere else?

Guess this place is harder to find if not impossible if it's not the forest and fields they burn than there is still the garbage and every village /town does have its close by burning site this is not limited to Thailand in whole Asia they are due to invest into waste to energy facilities billions of US$ -Asia is drowning in garbage

the rain and wind we had this afternoon has cleared it a bit for tonights sunset ten minits ago so tomorrow may be better ?

dave2

Don't set your hopes to high that was a drop in the ocean

Demonstration on April 24th at the 3 Kings Monument.

Finally

As if this is some kind of panacea or tipping point!

Make it to one participate.

Join,share,make it public

Join,share,make it public

Join,share,make it public

Join,share,make it public

Demonstration on April 24th at the 3 Kings Monument.

Finally

Nice inside - and don't worry if you stay all year around sure you won't have much time left.

This will probably be the first and last year that I will have the pleasure of having to breathe the 'fresh air' during burning season. The last 3 years I did the same as you, blueyeshk; escaped. Likely that we will move somewhere else before the end of the year because even though I can leave again next year, I don't want my wife to have to suffer through this again. Not really a problem for us because she is from Central Thailand anyway.

Either this or the temporary escape for some month which have to be extended year after year. It's just not a place where you can choose to live all year around for this reason ,even I am not sad to have a fundamental reason to travel 4-5 month a year abroad , it just doesn't make any sense to settle in the north permanently.

As I suspected the burning ban did have some positive effect, maybe build on that next season. I know that the farmer whose rice fields surround me didn't do any burning this year plus the local land owner was very cautious about it, despite him being a senior police figure. Similarly neighbours rather oddly decided to obey the law this year and despite the end of the ban, still haven't started to burn again, yet.

If the ban Had at all an effect is questionable if it is 200 or 100 on the scale it stays hazardous to health and I don't hope as you observed as less burning took place that this means they will spread over a longer time and make it even more painful as it takes more and more month to stay away. Education and new farming methods would be a nice approach for a sustainable solution.

The AQI was averaging 80, today, wow, more than double that.

This must be the first time Chinese tourists are actually noticing... Beijing is 55, BEIJING!!!

So, that's a population of 400,000 for CM and 11.5 million for Beijing.

I read an article in the Bangkok post last year that said most of the burning was done by gov interest crops, and the blame is targeted at farmers, but who knows.

Does anyone have any info on what's really going on?

Surely in this day and age they can find some sort of solution? Do locals care? or are they ignorant to just how bad it is for their health?

Thailand is probably the most developed country in SE Asia, why can't they get their act together with this problem?

Check out the level of PM 2.5 at Sri Phum 204.10 (ug/m3) this morning. Before I met my wife she used to work at the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment and her aunt is one of the big shots in the department. I broached the subject last year when she had come to CM with the PM and Ministers for meetings and to my surprise she was willing to talk it about and agreed that it was a serious problem, insisting that they were working on it. Amusing exchange when she mentioned '... The Pollution Control Department ... ', genuinely surprised I interrupted and said something like 'you have a pollution control department!'; red faces all around. Before she left for BK, I was assured that they were were working on a solution for the following year. Cautiously optimistic, I asked my wife if she thought anything would change, No she said and the conversation ended there. Fast forward to earlier this year when her aunt called and informed us that burning bans would be instituted and CP had signed a memorandum that it would not purchase corn derived from agricultural burning. I am positive that that this problem will exist in CM until the day I die and I am not even that old.

Nice inside - and don't worry if you stay all year around sure you won't have much time left.

This is a typical issue of few coursing harm and suffering to millions I don't understand why nobody is on the streets...but than again how much should I care with my annual routine of leaving the country from Feb-may due to hazardous pollution which makes the whole north inhabitable.

What is it with this songkran deadline? Wishful thinking? It's the rain who rules. No rain - enjoy until Santa Claus is coming

Meanwhile sign it if u got a sec:

https://www.change.org/p/chiang-mai-governor-improve-haze-pollution-information-for-public-health-in-northern-thailand

is the burning going on longer than normal? The air is still at extremely dangerous levels, in mid April. This is disgusting.

In post 253, poster Vivid put up three related pictures including a satellite picture for the Myanmar coast and western/northern Thailand, the wind maps for that day along with the fire maps for the same area showing where the fires/burning were heaviest.

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/879040-smoke-smog-dust-2016-chiang-mai/page-11#entry10540715

What can be clearly seen from those three things is that, despite there being a high density of fires to the West in Myanmar, the air above them is clear as a result of the winds coming off the ocean, the pollution is blown into Thailand.

And as wind direction changes it is blown into Burma - what is the point?

I still can't see why the wind which is so often mentioned by you guys should have any effect if the whole north Asia is under fire from India, Burma, Laos, Thailand, China it's one ring of fire - wind or no wind.

Airborne pollution is nothing more than a series of particles that can be carried by the wind, the heavier larger ones, PM10, fall to earth more quickly, the lighter ones, PM2.5 travel further but ultimately they fall to earth also. When the wind is from the North we get airborne pollution from China and Laos, from the North East it comes from Myanmar. But when the winds come from the West that comprises air that has blown across the Bay of Bengal and is pretty much clean air, unless there is significant burning on the Myanmar peninsular that air is likely to be cleaner rather than polluted when blowing into Thailand. Also, the wind currents become important at this time of the year since winds from the West signals the start of the South Westerly Monsoon, the rainy season.

Aha! still believe if over thousands of kilometers the area is under a smoke blanket the winds can't do nothing much than shift pollution around with no clean air supply from any direction available. But put your hopes into the wind if this is what gives you strength.

It's not so much about what gives me strength it's more about scientific fact, airborne pollution doesn't stretch from one foot off the ground right up into the ionosphere, neither does it tend to mass in concentrated forms over large bodies of water. I suggest you study a wind map and play it out over 24 hours or so and see the action of the wind currents and their associated speeds - if you do that you'll see that the winds currently are from the South West, an area where there is no land mass, ergo there is no burning! http://www.windfinder.com/weather-maps/forecast/thailand#5/13.149/101.493

Sounds like its an entirely local problem at the moment then, and pity the folk in the area where it next blows to.

Indeed very local just the north of Asia here on Bali it's all crisp blue skies;)

PM2.5 at extremely dangerous levels - breathe or don't breathe, up to you, but either way you are going to be in trouble

I think some wind will bring it down 10% or even 30% still it will be hazardous but some say it's an improvement - I think it doesn't matter if somebody got a broken leg in an deadly accident.

I still can't see why the wind which is so often mentioned by you guys should have any effect if the whole north Asia is under fire from India, Burma, Laos, Thailand, China it's one ring of fire - wind or no wind.

Airborne pollution is nothing more than a series of particles that can be carried by the wind, the heavier larger ones, PM10, fall to earth more quickly, the lighter ones, PM2.5 travel further but ultimately they fall to earth also. When the wind is from the North we get airborne pollution from China and Laos, from the North East it comes from Myanmar. But when the winds come from the West that comprises air that has blown across the Bay of Bengal and is pretty much clean air, unless there is significant burning on the Myanmar peninsular that air is likely to be cleaner rather than polluted when blowing into Thailand. Also, the wind currents become important at this time of the year since winds from the West signals the start of the South Westerly Monsoon, the rainy season.

Aha! still believe if over thousands of kilometers the area is under a smoke blanket the winds can't do nothing much than shift pollution around with no clean air supply from any direction available. But put your hopes into the wind if this is what gives you strength.

It's not so much about what gives me strength it's more about scientific fact, airborne pollution doesn't stretch from one foot off the ground right up into the ionosphere, neither does it tend to mass in concentrated forms over large bodies of water. I suggest you study a wind map and play it out over 24 hours or so and see the action of the wind currents and their associated speeds - if you do that you'll see that the winds currently are from the South West, an area where there is no land mass, ergo there is no burning! http://www.windfinder.com/weather-maps/forecast/thailand#5/13.149/101.493

I still can't see why the wind which is so often mentioned by you guys should have any effect if the whole north Asia is under fire from India, Burma, Laos, Thailand, China it's one ring of fire - wind or no wind.

Airborne pollution is nothing more than a series of particles that can be carried by the wind, the heavier larger ones, PM10, fall to earth more quickly, the lighter ones, PM2.5 travel further but ultimately they fall to earth also. When the wind is from the North we get airborne pollution from China and Laos, from the North East it comes from Myanmar. But when the winds come from the West that comprises air that has blown across the Bay of Bengal and is pretty much clean air, unless there is significant burning on the Myanmar peninsular that air is likely to be cleaner rather than polluted when blowing into Thailand. Also, the wind currents become important at this time of the year since winds from the West signals the start of the South Westerly Monsoon, the rainy season.

Aha! still believe if over thousands of kilometers the area is under a smoke blanket the winds can't do nothing much than shift pollution around with no clean air supply from any direction available. But put your hopes into the wind if this is what gives you strength.

No doubt about the fires....Saw one yesterday just north of town on the side of the west mountainous that was smoking for miles. But its a holiday so no firemen probably working? I still have to believe that the amount of filthy construction sites, diesel trucks, buses and motorcycles with no pollution controls spewing out toxic fumes has a lot to do with this. This place is growing so fast with out of control unregulated expansion that it is almost unlivable. I feel quite dumb about my decision to buy something here three years ago that has declined in value 20%. Even now at 3:00am worst reading I have ever seen this year.

It's really the fires otherwise you had this condition all year around and what u see now is not limited to your location but to the whole north. As for your investment - one should only settle in the north if able to make a 4 month holiday abroad every year.

I still can't see why the wind which is so often mentioned by you guys should have any effect if the whole north Asia is under fire from India, Burma, Laos, Thailand, China it's one ring of fire - wind or no wind.