End of the rains?

Could this be it, the end of the rains?

Last weekend a great flood in our neighborhood, a day confined to home with two feet of dirty water in the streets, local kids swimming happily in the sewage. Dek Sa-lum, says Auntie Porn, our Isan cleaning lady.

Now this week the days feeling cooler in the morning, no more than a few weak drops of rain in the late afternoon. It just feels different. Notice the wind heading from the west to east, then changing to the north, this was the beginning of the different feel. Dah says that winter has come. (Though the night temperature of close to thirty is still a little warm for this fahlang.)

Index of pages

A long way from home	1/1/2007
black hole	1/1/2007
Greasy black dust	1/7/2007
2007/07/first-night-tropical-paradise.html>	1/10/2007
by Ron Swelters " align="left" height="17"> 2007/07/that-april-thrill.html#comments> by Ron Swelters	1/10/2007
2007/06/here-is-my-story_25.html>	2/28/2007
2007/06/same-heat-every-year.html>	3/1/2007
Tropical Cool: How was it for you?	3/6/2007
Tropical Cool: Hot roof unmitigated(revised)	3/9/2007
Tropical Cool: Solar-heated concrete roofs	3/10/2007
Tropical Cool: Foiled by the foil	3/11/2007
Tropical Cool: Carrier's magic chart	3/12/2007
Tropical Cool: Tour the world's most uncomfortable cities!	3/15/2007
Tropical Cool: Why so hot at Don Muang?	3/17/2007
Tropical Cool: Keeping cool without sweat	3/22/2007
Topical Cool: Bangkok 's lovely breezes	3/23/2007
Tropical Cool: You probably don't vent enough	3/27/2007
Tropical Cool: Big open windows	3/28/2007
Tropical Cool: Fans and turbines for a hot afternoon	3/29/2007
Tropical Cool: A hat for her apartment	4/1/2007
Tropical Cool: When will the heat break?	4/3/2007
Tropical Cool: An escape from romance	4/8/2007
Tropical Cool: Worst night yet	4/8/2007
Tropical Cool: A two-hundred foot tree	4/15/2007
Tropical Cool: Local wisdom, upstairs/downstairs	4/20/2007
Tropical Cool: How cold that night sky	4/22/2007
Tropical Cool: Regional heat agony today	4/24/2007
Tropical Cool: My fan's fan Apr 27, 2007 352	4/27/2007
Tropical Cool: Cold exceptions prove the hot rule Apr 30, 2007 298	4/30/2007
Tropical Cool: Banish unsightly necksweat! May 08, 2007 320	5/8/2007
Tropical Cool: Hungarian attack on US hegemony May 11, 2007 316	5/11/2007
Tropical Cool: Are the Thai really different? May 13, 2007 508	5/13/2007
Tropical Cool: Enter humidity May 21, 2007 308	5/21/2007
Tropical Cool: Thai comfort II (the mysterious orient) May 25, 2007 297	5/25/2007
Tropical Cool: Is a hot tin roof cooler? Jun 10, 2007 249	6/10/2007
2007/07/hatless-in-bangkok.html>	7/30/2007
2007/07/waning-heat-of-summer.html>	7/31/2007
2007/08/hot-tin-roof.html>	8/1/2007
" align="left" height="17"> 2007/09/old-spice.html#comments>	9/24/2007
2007/09/normal-year.html>	9/24/2007
one watt aircon	11/3/2007
aircon fanatasies	11/3/2007
IN the cool of the pub	11/4/2007
Cool night roof	11/12/2007
Would you mosquitoes mind leabving	to add from thaivisa
Out of Africa	to add from thaivisa
Rain and the mud	to add from thaivisa
Tropical Cool: The dream and the dread	x
Tropical Cool: That April thrill	x
Tropical Cool: Hot tin roofs and fahlang sweat	x
Tropical Cool: Night heat in June Jun 15, 2007 257
the air from Isan--november	12/1/2007
change your perception of (proust)	11/26/2007
index	10/1/2007

Old Spice

Last year the makers of "Old Spice" deodorant for men published the results of a study of the "sweat rankings" of American cities. The winner was Phoenix Arizona but Texas cities like Dallas and Houston and several Florida cities were right up there and since I've always had a bad memory of Houston I'm going to use that place as a kind of bench mark, to compare Boston and Bangkok.


Take a look at the "march of temperature" through the seasons in three cities: Boston, which had a famous heat wave the first few days in August, 2006 (pink circle), a hundred thirty six people died including one woman sitting inthe bleachers at Fenway Park; Houston, which as I said seemed to me to be really awful, and Bangkok, awfuller yet. The red points are the highest temperature of the day, the green the highest dew point temperature of the day (more on that later). When the temperture is more than 30, you will begin to sweat, even if you are just sitting looking at this blog.

As you can see, that's most afternoons in Bangkok (the daily high is usually at about three o'clock).

You might say that Boston heat wave got up as high as Bangkok, but even thoughthey were passing out cold water on the half deserted Boston streets you could still sweat pretty effectively there because the dew point temperature was low, down around 24. In Bangkok, in contrast, the dew point hardly gets below 26 most of the year, so all that sweat just soaks your shirt and hardly cools a body at all.

Normal Year?

A couple of weeks ago a Thai lady said to me "The heat hasn't been bad this year, a couple of weeks in March or April, then the rains cooled things down and it hasn't been bad since."

This lady happened to be an experienced architect, and my sense of the year agreed with her comment, but as a "quant" I felt compelled to look at the data, so I loaded Don Muang daily highs (temp and dew point) and superimposed on the hottest year I've found, which happens to be 1983. To my surprise this suggested that 1983 wasn't really so bad after all, except that the hot season got a little prolonged (so it just kept getting hotter) and then finally broke with the rain which (if I am right in my thinking) came a little late. I also believe that 1983 was a bad flood year, so now I wonder wheher al these things are tied together.