Saturday, December 5th 2020, 6:02 am - In December 2016, rain started to flood Thailand, and the added water did not dissipate until the New Year.
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In December 2017, Southern Thailand faced a lot of rain. Way more rain than capacity would allow. The area flooded for over thirty days which cost around 120 billion baht or US$4 billion.
Courtesy: JAXA Global Satellite Mapping of Precipitation
Accumulated precipitation over Thailand from December 1st to 7th, 2016
From December 4 to 5th, the provinces 134 mm of rain accumulated in Songkhla and 120 mm in Nakhon Si Thammarat.
This was already after four days of extreme rain for other provinces in southern Thailand.
The Thai Meteorological Department's Automatic Weather Station reported that over 500 mm of rain fell between December 1 to 7 along the southern coast of the country.
Courtesy: YouTube / Number12
Flooding on the streets of Koh Samui.
The reason the area was inundated with so much rain was due to multiple factors. During the end of November there's an intensifying convective activity that occurs from the South China Sea to the Malay Peninsula.
A La Nina event occurred, which resulted in high sea surface temperatures, which is a perfect condition for cumulonimbus clouds to develop.
Cumulonimbus clouds are those big spanning clouds that pack a lot of rain and thunderstorm activity. Some roaring clouds that developed in the Gulf of Thailand passed over southern Thailand on December 1 and 2.
On December 3, a tropical depression developed just west of Malay Peninsula. A northeast monsoon was feeding the tropical depression extremely moist air, which resulted in record-setting week-long rain.
Courtesy: Instagram / @hannakarlson
Floods hits Thai Island of Koh Samui
The flooding killed 91 people and affected 360,000.
The floods also wounded Thailand's economy. To hear more about the impact of the 2016-2017 Thai floods, listen to today's episode of "This Day In Weather History".
This Day In Weather History is a daily podcast by The Weather Network that features unique and informative stories from host Chris Mei.
Thumbnail courtesy: Storyful
