Samui Smog

[phetphet]

Woke up this morning around 06:45.

Thought to myself, "Its looking pretty dark out there. Is it raining?" Opened the curtains to the worst smog I have ever seen here.

 

Had a look online at air quality index AQI for Samui. It's showing "Unhealthy 164".

 

PM2.5 concentration in Ko Samui is currently 16 times the WHO annual air quality guideline value.

 

One of the nice things about living here, coming from London is the fresh air. But this has had me coughing all week.

Even  the sunset last night was just a faded orange ball in a sea of grey.

I hope it doesn't last much longer. and we get some rain to wash it away.

[Neilly]

24 minutes ago, phetphet said:

I hope it doesn't last much longer. and we get some rain to wash it away.

Good chance today...

 

https://weather.tmd.go.th/cmp.php

[Tropicalevo]

Raining over Fisherman's Village at the moment.

I can usually see Angthon Marine Park from my place, but the hills behind Fisherman's was the limit this morning at 06.30.

Update 08.30

The strong winds have blown away a lot of the haze and I can see all of the north coastline again.

Edited April 16, 2023 by Tropicalevo

[phetphet]

31 minutes ago, Neilly said:

Good chance today...

 

https://weather.tmd.go.th/cmp.php

A light sprinkling when I popped out earlier, and some ominous black clouds passed over, but didn't drop anything. Maybe Nathon will get it.

Still. Every little helps. It feels much cooler this morning at last, and definitely clearer.

[Tmoney]

We've had heavy rain this morning near what TE calls 'the pointy bit'   here in Plai Laem.

Stopped now (9.15am) but looks like there's more to come.

At least it cooled down a lot now.

 

We often get rain around this time of year, the wife says it's Buddha playing Songkhran.

Edited April 16, 2023 by Tmoney

[Tom H]

16 times means 1600% by the way.

[malasa]

If you have problems outside: I can recommend to wear a mask (N95) ... Yes, masks help also against air pollution, and they will not make your dick smaller.

 

I was living in Malaysia some years ago with much higher PM2.5 values and it was common to wear masks when Indonesia burned palm trees again. Maybe the pollution is for some still not high enough to go through that again ... While I feel the beginning of the symptoms, that is nothing compared to a value over 300 where I had really bad headaches, and my eyes and mouth felt like someone pepper sprayed them - all the time.

 

Anyway, when it started 2 months ago on Samui I bough a rather cheap (3200 baht Lazada) air purifier for my bedroom and it helps me a lot. I set it so it operates even at normally ok values and let it also run at night for 2 hours before my regular wake up time. I feel much better in the morning. 

 

Since a few days I decreased the turn-on threshold because I was feeling worse again and it runs quite often during the day, which is an indicator that the air is polluted. The device acts quite fast, when I fry something in the kitchen it takes just a few minutes to recognize it, same with the wild fires in the neighborhood which I sometimes only smell when I go outside. 

 

So, if you have problems: both masks and filters work for me. 

 

[KannikaP]

5 hours ago, phetphet said:

One of the nice things about living here, coming from London is the fresh air. But this has had me coughing all week.

London is 67 at the moment.

[khunPer]

7 hours ago, phetphet said:

Had a look online at air quality index AQI for Samui. It's showing "Unhealthy 164".

 

PM2.5 concentration in Ko Samui is currently 16 times the WHO annual air quality guideline value.

We are probably not looking at the same Index. Yesterday Samui was Okay – but Phangan not – today Samui is also reasonable, half of Phangan not...

 

 

 

 

Another source...

 

Edited April 16, 2023 by khunPer

[malasa]

8 minutes ago, khunPer said:

We are probably not looking at the same Index. Yesterday Samui was Okay – but Phangan not – today Samui is also reasonable, half of Phangan not...

No, yesterday it was not ok, it seems the monitor and the history on this page are not working correctly. Look at the history of both stations, they barely change at all. 

 

8 minutes ago, khunPer said:

Another source...

If you look at the timeline you see that this was much worse before 09:00, when the rain started ...

 

2nd: on the iqair page there are 3 monitors pm Samui and in the morning one was also quite lower (Lamai) but not as low as the other page. You always have to read the data with a grain of salt but I'm pretty sure it was not around 50 yesterday or before the rain.

[churchill]

52 minutes ago, khunPer said:

We are probably not looking at the same Index. Yesterday Samui was Okay – but Phangan not – today Samui is also reasonable, half of Phangan not...

 

 

 

 

Another source...

 

Whenever I check , Phangan has far worse readings than Samui / not sure why a few miles makes so much difference .

[khunPer]

33 minutes ago, churchill said:

Whenever I check , Phangan has far worse readings than Samui / not sure why a few miles makes so much difference .

Likely wind...

[khunPer]

1 hour ago, malasa said:

No, yesterday it was not ok, it seems the monitor and the history on this page are not working correctly. Look at the history of both stations, they barely change at all. 

 

If you look at the timeline you see that this was much worse before 09:00, when the rain started ...

 

2nd: on the iqair page there are 3 monitors pm Samui and in the morning one was also quite lower (Lamai) but not as low as the other page. You always have to read the data with a grain of salt but I'm pretty sure it was not around 50 yesterday or before the rain.

Yesterday at 6 pm indexed time, it was good; however, Phangan bad, the island was covered in mist og smog and could not be seen from Samui at 6 o'clock, today it's visible, but not clear. If you look at the history line (one of the shared screen shots), it was good at all checked times...????

[ChaiyaTH]

5 minutes ago, khunPer said:

Yesterday at 6 pm indexed time, it was good; however, Phangan bad, the island was covered in mist og smog and could not be seen from Samui at 6 o'clock, today it's visible, but not clear. If you look at the history line (one of the shared screen shots), it was good at all checked times...????

I noticed last year same as this year, we usually can't see Samui for 4-6 weeks or so, and then it got better again in late May I think.

 

There was quite a few hours of rain on Phangan today, cooled off, we barely had wind too last days, was super sticky hot.

Edited April 16, 2023 by ChaiyaTH

[phetphet]

1 hour ago, khunPer said:

We are probably not looking at the same Index. Yesterday Samui was Okay – but Phangan not – today Samui is also reasonable, half of Phangan not...

 

 

 

 

Another source...

 

This is the one I looked at this morning: https://www.iqair.com/th-en/thailand/surat-thani/ko-samui

 

Now dropped, but still showing AQI  of 102.

[KhunLA]

1 hour ago, phetphet said:

This is the one I looked at this morning: https://www.iqair.com/th-en/thailand/surat-thani/ko-samui

 

Now dropped, but still showing AQI  of 102.

There's 3 IQair meter there, 80/102/107 ATM.   Winds (windy.com) coming from the N (80) location to S (102) & SE (107)

https://www.windy.com/-Show---add-more-layers/overlays?9.516,99.834,11

 

IQair showing winds from W 

Edited April 16, 2023 by KhunLA

[malasa]

1 hour ago, khunPer said:

Yesterday at 6 pm indexed time, it was good; however, Phangan bad, the island was covered in mist og smog and could not be seen from Samui at 6 o'clock, today it's visible, but not clear. If you look at the history line (one of the shared screen shots), it was good at all checked times...????

No, it was not good on Samui, the page is saying that - nothing else. The page you are looking at is not showing correct values in my opinion. Other services are showing much higher values, even now but the page you are referring too is still showing 52. A good indicator is the little change over the hours or even days, strange that it is always around 50, +/- 2. That looks completely different on other pages, who knows what they are measuring or if the data is correct at all.

 

Maybe the values are correct for KP, but definitely not for Samui. Other pages, my eyes and my air purifier confirming that. I would not recommend to use the page for Samui.

[khunPer]

23 hours ago, phetphet said:

This is the one I looked at this morning: https://www.iqair.com/th-en/thailand/surat-thani/ko-samui

 

Now dropped, but still showing AQI  of 102.

Depending of where you measure on Samui, I gave you two links with more than one station, so I have more faith in that two sources...

[Tropicalevo]

Things are starting to improve with this CM smog.

For the last week I am seeing stars at night and blue sky above during the day. Even the sea looked blue for the past few days

The smog is still hanging around at sea level though. Cannot see the Angthong National Marine Park yet.

Edited April 21, 2023 by Tropicalevo

[khunPer]

Today (22nd April)...

 

 

[kwilco]

what is the source of the haze on Samui?

[khunPer]

9 hours ago, kwilco said:

what is the source of the haze on Samui?

Wind from north or south, depending of weather and burning season. Smoke all the way from Indonesia can in worst case scenarios be moved up to Samui and her sisters, like it happened in 2015...

 

 

–where you hardly could see 2.5 kilometers from the middle to the end of Maenam Bay for a few days...

 

 

This is what it normally looks like (also 2015)...

 

[kwilco]

4 hours ago, khunPer said:

Wind from north or south, depending of weather and burning season. Smoke all the way from Indonesia can in worst case scenarios be moved up to Samui and her sisters, like it happened in 2015...

 

 

–where you hardly could see 2.5 kilometers from the middle to the end of Maenam Bay for a few days...

 

 

This is what it normally looks like (also 2015)...

 

Terrible - I was there in March but got a chest infection f=rom being up North - seems there is nowhere to hide these days....

I emember a few days when I lived there from the same source

[bignok]

14 hours ago, kwilco said:

what is the source of the haze on Samui?

Farts from fmp

[phetphet]

On 5/12/2023 at 4:43 AM, kwilco said:

what is the source of the haze on Samui?

This most recent one was from burning in the north being blown down here.

[PoorSucker]

22 hours ago, phetphet said:

This most recent one was from burning in the north being blown down here.

It's been horrible past months here in Pattaya, getting good now.

Can see the mountains again from my 12 floor condo balcony again.