Yesterday afternoon about 3.30, sitting chatting with friends who live just South of Mae-Rim, the skies darkened and the wind picked-up. Here comes a nice welcome shower, to clear the smog from the air, Goody ! .. we all thought.

Instead we got extreme gale-force winds, which blew over fully-mature trees, driving-rain like I've never seen here in five years, and a hailstorm with chuncks of ice up to 1/2-inch sized.

The Thais amongst us raced for their phones & video-cameras, they had never seen anything like it, and were keen to record it for posterity. We farangs were more concerned for our car-windows & roofs at home. Fortunately no serious damage.

I later heard that it had hit Prem school, a few km North of Mae-Rim, about 3.00, so it was clearly moving Southwards.

The kids had fun afterwards - running round collecting the ice off the driveway !

Only very strong wind and three big drops of rain at my place. But got to admit that thnaked Universe for NO hail. My roofs don't have any protection from trees and thus would be fully exposed to the damaging effect that hail can have.

Nienke

I was out at Huay Thung Thaew lake yesterday. Very strong winds and possibly looked as thought it was gunna let loose..

NOT

Only saw and watched as 2 helicopters were scooping water with buckets into the lake to fight a fire up in the mountain..

Man, I miss a good hail storm...