Warmer Days Ahead For Bangkok, North To Stay Cool

Warmer days ahead for Bangkok, North to stay cool

The cool breezes bringing relief to Bangkok these past few days will start dying down tomorrow as the high pressure system over China moves southeast.

“The barometer is expected to fall on Thursday and Thailand will be sizzling hot again,” Anant Thansathit, director-general of the Meteorological Department, said yesterday.

A few days of gusty winds and mild temperatures in the middle of the hot season was not that unusual of a phenomenon and the mercury will rise once the atmospheric pressure decreases, he said.

“Next month we can expect the same situation. When the weather gets really hot and cool breezes from the north flow down to Thailand, this results in windy, rainy days, known as summer storms.”

In the North and the Northeast, early mornings have been cool and are likely to stay that way for many more days. Bangkok however will be hotter with the daily peak at 2pm.

“Due to the drought and water shortages in many provinces throughout Thailand, forests often catch on fire. The Meteorology Department gives prior notice to local officials to be aware of this problem and to warn villagers not to overuse water. Farmers are suggested to grow crops that do well under dry conditions,” Anant said.

In Mae Hong Son, the drought is expected to be worse than last year. January to mid-March last year saw rainfall of 52mm, while it has been only 0.5 mm so far this year. Yesterday reached 36.8 degrees Celsius.

Pisit Poungsuwan, chief of Mae Hong Son’s weather station, is concerned about the forest-fire situation and said it would be difficult to initiate artificial rain without clouds for the chemicals to gather on to create the precipitation.

Sanya Phononghai, chief of Mae Hong Son’s wildfire-control station, said the northern province has about 7.9 million rai of open land, 7.2 million rai of forestland and 5.6 million rai of tropical forest where most fires are sparked. The United States took 30 years to overcome fire problems, thus Mae Hong Son will take as much, if not more time to take control of nature.

--The Nation 2004-03-10