Probably the most common question we receive in our thai-blogs.com mailbox and over at the ThailandQA.com forums is advice on the weather in Thailand. Everyone wants to know “When to go?”. Well, the optimum time to go is between November and February when most areas don’t have any rain and the temperature is at its coolest. Our “little winter” happens towards the end of December and doesn’t really last more than one week. However, this year we seemed to have had at least three “little winters”. This morning the temperature in Central Thailand went down to a very chilly 20 Celsius. The windchill factor made it seem even colder. I know people don’t believe me when I talk like that, but it was very chilly. Just take a look at the picture of the students in assembly this morning. That should be a sea of white. But, the majority of students were wearing jackets today. I was wearing a jacket too.
By February it usually starts to warm up. The hottest month is April which is our summer holidays. The Songkran Festival also takes place in April and splashing water on people is a good way to cool down. For most of Thailand the Rainy Season is June to October. However, the rains can start as early as Songkran. In the Central Region (Bangkok) it usually only rains at the start or end of the day. It will only rain during the day if there is a weather front passing through. We usually get the floods in October when the rivers are at their highest level. In the north (Chiang Mai) their rainy season is similar to Bangkok though they have their floods earlier. Down south they have different monsoons depending on which side you are on. On the West Coast (Phuket and Phi Phi) they have heavy monsoons from May to October. On the East Coast (Koh Samui) they sometimes get some of this rain but their monsoon really doesn’t arrive until October and lasts as late as January. Their periods of rain will last much longer.
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