Landslide, flash floods warning as tropical storm Higos gets ready to pummel North, Northeast

By The Nation

 

 

The Meteorological Department has warned that category 3 tropical storm Higos is going to batter the North and upper Northeast regions of Thailand from Thursday to Sunday (August 20 to 23).

 

Gp Captain Somsak Khaosuwan, director-general of the department said the storm, with maximum wind speeds of about 65 kilometres per hour, is expected to make landfall over China’s Guangdong province between Wednesday and Thursday.

 

The storm is expected to bring heavy rain in every province in the North and Northeast as well as the Central region and is expected to be stronger than the recent Sinlaku tropical storm.

 

People have been warned against landslides and flash floods.

 

Source: https://www.nationthailand.com/news/30393152?utm_source=category&utm_medium=internal_referral

 

-- © Copyright The Nation Thailand 2020-08-18

 

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We sure do need the rain. Bring it on. 

https://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/western-pacific/2020/tropical-storm-higos

Batten down the hatches !   Honey,  get to the store for some Johnny W .   Don't forget to buy some

face masks.     Heck,  well prepared after the last 6 months!    Just another week of the NN (new normal)    

I am more of a bourbon guy 

44 minutes ago, Captain_Bob said:

We sure do need the rain. Bring it on.

The problem as always: too late, too much at once.

Months of drought, a lot of crop die off.

Then huge downpour, rest of the crop washed away.

We had so much rain up here. At least the last few weeks it was raining every day.

Would like some sunshine days in between to have a ride around with the bike.

36 minutes ago, whiteman said:

I am more of a bourbon guy 

Jack Daniels ?   FYI :  Jack Daniel's is not a bourbon - it's a Tennessee Whiskey. Jack Daniel's is dripped slowly - drop-by-drop - through ten feet of firmly packed charcoal (made from hard sugar maple) before going into new charred oak barrels for maturing. This special process gives Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey its rare smoothness.

 

I  like  Jack as well as Johnny.    Just hate waiting for the stuff to drip drip drip through all that charcoal before i can get a nice double shot

31 minutes ago, Paiman said:

We had so much rain up here. At least the last few weeks it was raining every day.

Would like some sunshine days in between to have a ride around with the bike.

i was thinking the same.....

It rains in the rainy season.

Who would have thought it?

3 hours ago, fishtank said:

It rains in the rainy season.

Who would have thought it?

I used to! very little rain this year outside Udon, we need to get some rain to fill reservoirs! not sure where you guys are that have been getting a lot of rain but according to "summary" the majority of the reservoirs across the country are very low. http://www.thaiwater.net/DATA/REPORT/php/rid_dam_1.php?lang=en

There will be plenty of rainfall indeed, but it will have nothing to do with Higos, just the usual monsoon rains. That system will be way north of Thailand. Fake news.

This morning I checked some track/prediction for this storm.

From that it's hard to believe that it will bring that much to Thailand.

 

About much/little rain.

The statistics to be found on Thaimet shows that some parts have reached normal/above normal.

(incl. ours)

But still many areas deep in red/brown (deficit).

Deviation of total rainfall from normal since Jan 1:

 

21 minutes ago, KhunBENQ said:

The statistics to be found on Thaimet shows that some parts have reached normal/above normal

Yet all the reservoirs are at critically low levels, something doesn't add up 

Udonrat, the largest water storage area by far in the NE is at its lowest level since construction in ~1965.

So the battering is supposed to take place Thurs 20 to Sun 23.

 

At 12 noon on Fri 21 Thaiwater.net records:

"Current state of storm approaching Thailand: No storm"

 

There was a reasonably lengthy period of showers here in southern Sisaket yesterday, but not what I would describe as a storm .... and blue skies today. Water resource managers must be getting very uncomfortable about the number of critically low level large reservoirs. 'Usable volume' as a % of "capacity at storage level" averages 14% in the North-East and 9% in the North (see extracted image below - the full national table can be seen here: http://www.thaiwater.net/DATA/REPORT/php/rid_dam_1.php?sdate=2020-08-22&lang=en

 

Pray for a very very wet September!

 

Post script:

Took a further look at the detail. If you click on a particular dam it throws up detailed charts by year plotting the storage levels over a selected year against (what I take to be) a higher average plot for historical years and a lower average plot. For the 3 dams I selected it was clear that storage levels are not woefully lower than average as of now and that the real increases in storage levels only kick off after mid August*. CGW need not worry too much about his Udonrat dam (sic - should be Ubonrat). It appears to operate at extremely low %'s of capacity throughout the year according to the charts and this year is no outlier.

 

*And as I remember now the real big storms in eastern and south eastern Isaan last year only kicked off in mid August, though there was stuff a bit earlier than that happening up in Sakhon Nakhon.

 

 

Not THE big thing so far here (western Khon Kaen).

Rain yes, but very moderate intensity.

Waiting for more.

2 hours ago, SantiSuk said:

Udonrat dam (sic - should be Ubonrat)

And the street signs direct you to "Ubol Ratana dam"

2 hours ago, KhunBENQ said:

Not THE big thing so far here (western Khon Kaen).

Rain yes, but very moderate intensity.

Waiting for more.

And the street signs direct you to "Ubol Ratana dam"

Thai language pronounces the Thai equivalent of o+l as the last two letters of a word to sound 'on', so it looks like ubol but is said as ubon.

 

It's taken me 13 years of living closeish to, and visiting very regularly, Ubon Ratchathani to understand why the Ubon bit is often spelled Ubol in/around Ubon. Ratana as a place name is often shortened by Thais to 'Rat' (I also live on the border of an amphur called Sri Rattana which the locals invariably call Si-rat).

 

Hence Ubolrat when transliterated to English in written form (occasionally Ubonrat, as in ThaiWater's schedules).