What is happening to the high season air? It looks like March! I have been in CM for four years and I have never seen this before. Someone suggested to me that it is coming down from China. The air is too terrible to be coming from the tuk tuks and song thaews, though they have been belching a more opaque smoke this year than usual. The air should be pristine.

You're right - there has been some thick fogs and high pressure coming down from China the last few days:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=149633

Glad I'm not down in the South and getting flooded, though.

Is that air pollution (smoke, etc.) or just the weather? I can barely see Doi Suthep from my front step now, after being gone a week. It looks like fog, though.

Is that air pollution (smoke, etc.) or just the weather? I can barely see Doi Suthep from my front step now, after being gone a week. It looks like fog, though.

I think it's just the weather. I live in a rural area near Nan with no industry and very few cars and the visibility here is terrible at the moment - about like last March when we had the smoke from the forest fires.

PM-10 level about 40 - so these days are nothing like March, where levels above the standard hazardous threshold at 120 were prevalent.

Source: http://www.pcd.go.th/AirQuality/Regional/G...fm?task=default

It's haze, not pollution, IMHO....

It's smoke, my sinuses never lie.

"They" are raking up all their crap as fast as they can and burning it like they do every time we get 3 or 4 dry days in a row.

fog and mist - we are so used to blue skies we forget what it is

NAture generates it of her own free will

this is not the Feruary March buring off

IMVHO

A government meteoroligist spokesperson was quoted in the Bangkok Post several days ago as saying that the hazes are caused by a cold front from China mixing with the hot air.

So if it's in the Bangkok Post and verified by the govt. then it must be true, LOL.........

Oddly enough the folks in Phuket are asking similar questions! Fog has prevailed unusually and the usually predictable end to the rainy season is not yet apparent.

It's smoke, my sinuses never lie.

"They" are raking up all their crap as fast as they can and burning it like they do every time we get 3 or 4 dry days in a row.

There's folks in Phuket who think the same as you and really, truly, it's not the case. Visit the thread, it's a Thailand thing right now.

It's haze, not pollution, IMHO....

Absolutely , pretty normal though , I stay at home right now slightly more to the North in Chiangdao

and you can always feel it coming here first , Chiangmai is just starting .

The Fog I mean , the cold season is starting !

But also in some areas burning is going on as well , the Op could be right at the spot where he stays .

Agreed!

I was coming south on the 107 and was almost forced to pull over as the air quality just turned in an instant! It was like the air was burning and my lungs were near-a-fire!

The cool season should see some relief though.

It's smoke, my sinuses never lie.

"They" are raking up all their crap as fast as they can and burning it like they do every time we get 3 or 4 dry days in a row.

There's folks in Phuket who think the same as you and really, truly, it's not the case. Visit the thread, it's a Thailand thing right now.

When this fog happened last month in the middle of rainy season you assumed it was smoke, which it wasn't. Now that it's happened in Phuket too it must be fog. Of course it's fog!