Two weeks ago Phuket and several other regions of Thailand were hit by severe storms, causing several fatalities and great loss of property. On shore landslides killed dozens of locals and tourists and on the coast boats broke their moorings and were washed up on the beaches or smashed against rocks.
When we arrived in Phuket on the second of April, after our two-week passage from the Maldives, we were told it was the first non rainy day in more than a week. There had been periods of 50 knots of wind and there had been almost 200 mm of rain in at least one 24-hour period. Good timing on our side for once, it appears.
The reason I’m writing this post is that I find it difficult to understand why these storms are allowed to cause so much grief and destruction. After all, they don’t just fall out of the sky unexpectedly. Actually, when I was preparing for our trip in the Maldives more than a week before the storm and 1,500 nautical miles (almost 3,000 km) away, I saw that this low pressure system was about to hit Thailand – that is if you believe what the GRIB files are predicting 7-8 days ahead.
On March 18, two days before our departure from Male, I downloaded GRIBs showing cyclonic-pattern winds at Phuket on the 168 hour (7 days) forecast. The forecasts on the two following days confirmed that there was something unusual going on. The image below shows what the GRIB file of March 20 forecasted for the Phuket area on March 27.
This forecast didn’t concern us aboard Scorpio at all, we would still be far away south of the Bay of Bengal. However, we naturally kept a close look at the progress of this predicted weather system all the way.
But how could so many in Thailand be taken by surprise?
