Thailand not expected to face major flood this year: Met Dept

[webfact]

Met Dept: Thailand not expected to face major flood this year

BANGKOK, 23 June 2014 (NNT) – The Meteorological Department said that Thailand is unlikely to face another major flood this year, as less rains are expected compared to last year.

During the celebration of the 72nd anniversary of the department’s establishment, the weather bureau said the overall volume of rainfall will not be as high as that of last year, as most of the rainwater has already been accumulated in the southern and western regions.

In July, a series of thunderstorms can be expected and the wet season is set to last until the middle of October. At the end of the month, winter is set to begin in the country.

The North will experience the transition into winter before other parts of Thailand.

The department also dismissed rumors about a possible tsunami that is set to strike the Southern provinces by saying that the giant 2-3 meter high waves that have been hitting shores recently are a common phenomenon during the monsoon season and not a tsunami.

Currently, strong winds will continue to generate high waves in coastal provinces and fishermen are urged to follow weather updates.


-- NNT 2014-06-23

[Morch]

Somehow, whenever the Meteorological Department tries to make the public calm, I personally get a little worried.

[Chris Lawrence]

Thats lucky for Bangkok and the Thailand Car Industry? Hope they are right.

[clockman]

But one day the rains will come again. And they have done nothing!

[marko kok prong]

<deleted>,the met dept's predictions are starting to sound like TAT is running it.

[robblok]

Thats lucky for Bangkok and the Thailand Car Industry? Hope they are right.

As I was flooded in the great 2011 flood that was messed up so badly by the YL goverment (stay home it will all be alright and no real info until i was flooded). I certainly hope it wont happen again.

However that big flood was due to mismanagement of the dams and nothing else, without that mismanagement the flood would not have happened. They wanted to safe as much rain for the farmers as possible.. and then there was too much and they had to release it at a time there was already too much rain.

So even with a lot of rain they still have to mismanage the dams again to equal the 2011 flood. I doubt they will be this stupid again its better for some farmers to have a bit less water then for a big part of the country to be flooded.

[bkkstooge]

"Thailand not expected to face major flood this year"

Famous Last Words come to mind

[djjamie]

If one person dies in any floods this year the PTP only have themselves to blame and should be held accountable. If they didn't circumvent the processes in place then the flood prevention measures in BKK would be well under way. Had they done the environmental impact and health assessments before proceeding as well as being transparent by holding public hearings the people in Bangkok would not have to rely on a positive weather forecast to feel secure.

I wish the Bangkok residents a drama free year free of flooding.

[worgeordie]

That means there is going to be a water shortage for sure.

regards worgeordie

[ChrisY1]

Someones been to the fortune teller......

[Cloggie]

May I borrow his "crystal ball" so I can see how the future looks for me the next few years.....

[ChrisY1]

Thats lucky for Bangkok and the Thailand Car Industry? Hope they are right.

As I was flooded in the great 2011 flood that was messed up so badly by the YL goverment (stay home it will all be alright and no real info until i was flooded). I certainly hope it wont happen again.

However that big flood was due to mismanagement of the dams and nothing else, without that mismanagement the flood would not have happened. They wanted to safe as much rain for the farmers as possible.. and then there was too much and they had to release it at a time there was already too much rain.

So even with a lot of rain they still have to mismanage the dams again to equal the 2011 flood. I doubt they will be this stupid again its better for some farmers to have a bit less water then for a big part of the country to be flooded.

Hay...c'mon.....Plodrasop did a gret job in 2011.....yeh....a little bit more rain than expected.....but we were ok...it was only knee deep !!

[bigbamboo]

Unbelievable. Any meteorologist worth his somtam will tell you that long range forecasts are a shot in the dark at the best of times. God knows what they use to make their predictions here but I'd bet fortune tellers, ghosts and a pack of cards are involved somewhere.

[MESmith]

Can't be bothered to look up any stats, but we seem to have received a lot more rain so far this year where I live east of Chiang Mai than previous years. And the "dry season" was shorter than most years....

[bangrak]

Thats lucky for Bangkok and the Thailand Car Industry? Hope they are right.

As I was flooded in the great 2011 flood that was messed up so badly by the YL goverment (stay home it will all be alright and no real info until i was flooded). I certainly hope it wont happen again.

However that big flood was due to mismanagement of the dams and nothing else, without that mismanagement the flood would not have happened. They wanted to safe as much rain for the farmers as possible.. and then there was too much and they had to release it at a time there was already too much rain.

So even with a lot of rain they still have to mismanage the dams again to equal the 2011 flood. I doubt they will be this stupid again its better for some farmers to have a bit less water then for a big part of the country to be flooded.

Hay...c'mon.....Plodrasop did a gret job in 2011.....yeh....a little bit more rain than expected.....but we were ok...it was only knee deep !!

Even when it's only irony, it's still bad taste to link that awfull Plodprasop character with anything (vaguely, remotely) associated with 'a great job', IMO, someone being a science minister(!) and heading water management(!) just coming up with stuff like pushing water to the sea, and spending hundreds of millions for it, should simply be demoted, and locked up with the loonies, before the Courts pluck him bare! To form a diagnosis, I'd advise the judicial psychiatrists to (un)dress him in his kinky King Naresuan (his 'Napoleon'?) outfit, throw him in a cooling chamber for a day to chill out, and see whether he's going to call anyone 'trash' when he's let out...

[Thai at Heart]

In April it is very hot, then it rains a bit then it rains a bit more. If it really rains a lot, there will be a flood, if it doesn't there won't be. Then it gets cold around November to Feb.

This article reads like a travel magazine.......

[bangrak]

Unbelievable. Any meteorologist worth his somtam will tell you that long range forecasts are a shot in the dark at the best of times. God knows what they use to make their predictions here but I'd bet fortune tellers, ghosts and a pack of cards are involved somewhere.

Amazing Thailand, dear, they have 'strong magic' here we Farangs can't understand, it's all part of 'Thainess', they might even still believe their own BS when the waterlevel reaches their nostrils... Middle ages, or stone age, I don't know, but that's how their, erm, 'psyche', erm, works, and, mind you, these are highly educated chaps speaking, can you imagine the level of the general populace...? Who's going to, wanting to, bring Thais out of childhood...?

[NanLaew]

If one person dies in any floods this year the PTP only have themselves to blame and should be held accountable. If they didn't circumvent the processes in place then the flood prevention measures in BKK would be well under way. Had they done the environmental impact and health assessments before proceeding as well as being transparent by holding public hearings the people in Bangkok would not have to rely on a positive weather forecast to feel secure.

I wish the Bangkok residents a drama free year free of flooding.

If nobody dies in any floods this year, then it's all because 'superman' Prayuth is our helmsman.

If anyone had implemented the flood prevention measures you speak of, there would have been untold, EXTENDED misery for hundreds of thousands of people, homes, factories and businesses in the industrialized and commercial areas to that lie outside Bangkok.

But they don't matter much do they? They were mostly red anyway, dammit!

[ResX]

Right or wrong, it is not the right approach when dealing with floods. Water management authorities should not make their flood projection as the important issue. It is wiser to share their flood mitigation standard operating procedure to deal with very minor flood to very big flood.

Let the nature does its job. The authorites shall do theirs. The nature has obligation to listen to their prediction. But they have the obligation to deal with flood efficiently. Very important obligation.

[useronthenet]

Amazing how the Metrological Department can predict so far ahead. Perhaps they have employed a local fortune teller, or maybe the Chief has an amazing crystal ball with mystical powers stuffed in the wardrobe. Yes, if you can determine the weather patterns so accurately, then I would agree. Unfortunately us mere mortals have to rely on scientific evidence, rather than hocus pocus ideology.

[NanLaew]

The North will experience the transition into winter before other parts of Thailand.

And that is just about all that can be taken from this news item.

[moe666]

Many of the posters here forget the most important thing about all of this, it works for the Thais and has been working for sometime now, get over yourselves you maybe happier.

[JohnThailandJohn]

Unbelievable. Any meteorologist worth his somtam will tell you that long range forecasts are a shot in the dark at the best of times. God knows what they use to make their predictions here but I'd bet fortune tellers, ghosts and a pack of cards are involved somewhere.

Actually they are fairly decent at predicting this type of thing but not good at predicting if it will rain on any given day in the future. Seasonal storms can be predicted by things such as ocean temps. It is somewhere in between a 10 day weather prediction and being able to say that the rainy season will be wetter than the dry season.

[Travel2003]

And if a major flood do come, they will blame it on either Global warming, El Nino or La Nina, Al Qaeda, or it is because of a virus.

[ezzra]

Those Met. Dep. guys are reading the tea leafs again... otherwise, no way the can "Predict"

such a wild guess....

[timber]

I wonder if they could give me some tips on the stock market?

[Estrada]

Thats lucky for Bangkok and the Thailand Car Industry? Hope they are right.

As I was flooded in the great 2011 flood that was messed up so badly by the YL goverment (stay home it will all be alright and no real info until i was flooded). I certainly hope it wont happen again.

However that big flood was due to mismanagement of the dams and nothing else, without that mismanagement the flood would not have happened. They wanted to safe as much rain for the farmers as possible.. and then there was too much and they had to release it at a time there was already too much rain.

So even with a lot of rain they still have to mismanage the dams again to equal the 2011 flood. I doubt they will be this stupid again its better for some farmers to have a bit less water then for a big part of the country to be flooded.

It did a study on this and made several presentations. Actually it wasn't the mismanagement of the dams, it was caused because excessive rains that fell around the Yom river which should have had a dam, but was never built due to environmentalist opposition.

[rickirs]

With more than three months remaining in the rainy season, the prediction seems premature. Most flood strategies typically plan for a 100-year rainfall but there is no guarantee that a 200-year rainfall might develop between now and the next 200 years, or that you might have a 200-year rainfall back-to-back with a 100-year rainfall. And with the greater storm intensities arising througout the world from global warming, historical storm patterns are virtually useless in weather predictions. Lucky for meteorologists that they are only accountable to say "I'm sorry" when their predictions fail.

[siampolee]

Problem solved by the Thai people..

No great masses of people in Bangkok demonstrating about this and that.Thus Thailand is no longer putting itself out of kilter geologically and geographically by altering its balance and thus the weather pattern.

[sgtsabai]

No one can predict a 100 or 200 year flood, but all flood control should be done with those in mind. I don't see it happening in Thailand. Where I live there is an additional 2 lanes being added to the highway, much needed. Along this highway is a major drainage ditch, also being redone. They started the highway work well before the ditch, filling portions of the old ditch, oops. As I observe the size, size of culverts etc. I can't help but notice the culverts in particular are too small. A barrier to water flow. The old ditch was never cleaned and much of it was damned off by locals for their water buffaloes. Most drainage, whether new or old, especially old, here was not and is not designed to handle much water flow. Just in this area it would take billions of baht to correct and many years. Most fail to realize the compounding effect of building subdivisions, new shopping malls etc. where there were rice paddies, fallow lands, etc. Those areas actually worked as holding ponds, that water now has to run. I worked the last 10 years doing survey/lay out work for a drainage/flood control district in flood prone SE Texas/Gulf Coast. I just had to laugh, to my self not the people, when people that built in former rice paddies couldn't understand why their subdivision was flood prone. Ah duh, it was a rice paddy, easy to get water to that is why it was there. We did all our work in-house, engineering including. Worked out great, much better than contract work, found and corrected many mistakes in contracted survey work and a savings to the tax payer. Proper flood control is not easy and gets expensive. The environment always has to be kept in mind. We had a specialist under contract. And there are times that no matter how much is done, it will never be enough. Storm surge especially combined with heavy rains and outflow makes for a bad situation, much like Bangkok faces. The water just can't go. A massive pumping system can help, an adjoining district had to have, the area was too low, parts below sea level, and the water couldn't flow with gravity. Like the situation Bangkok faces, expensive and complicated. Maybe the new government will actually do something, I wouldn't hold my breath.