THAILAND: The Meteorological Department predicts that the summer will end by the middle of next month, but El Nio’s effects will start to be felt in Thailand by the middle of June. Authorities issued a warning to citizens to stay indoors due to the excessive heat, which affected Bangkok and other parts of the nation.
Somkhwan Tanchan, director of the Meteorological Observations Division, predicts that the hottest temperatures will remain above 40 °C for the remainder of the summer, even though the maximum temperature was previously predicted to reach 43 °C.
Since the beginning of the month, the average maximum temperature has been around 40 degrees Celsius. “This isn’t a heat wave, as India and Bangladesh have been experiencing since early April, but rather the impact of a low-pressure trough,” he said.
Somkhwan predicts that this year’s drought will be more severe than the ones in 2019 and 2020, leading to a wave of extremely high temperatures in Thailand. The department issued a health advisory due to the heat wave’s continued severity.
Chomphari Chomphurat, director-general of the Meteorological Department, reported that the heat index, or “feels like” temperature, reached a peak on Friday at 54 C in Bangkok, Chon Buri, and Phuket. This is what the temperature feels like to a human body when combined with the air temperature and relative humidity.
Data from the Department of Health suggests that people exposed to extreme heat for an extended period of time are at a high risk of suffering from heat stroke when the heat index is between 41 and 54 °C.
Bang Na, Chon Buri, and Phuket provinces in Thailand have high heat indexes due to their proximity to the sea and high humidity.
Extreme weather, including thunderstorms, is expected from Monday to Thursday, with temperatures exceeding 40 °C in at least 28 provinces on Saturday.
According to a government official, Anucha Burapachaisri, the recent high heat has broken previous records for electricity consumption, with the nation using more than 39,000 megawatts on April 6 compared to the previous record of 32,000 megawatts set in April of last year.
Also Read: Thailand Workers Who Made F&F Jeans for Tesco ‘Trapped in Effective Forced Labor’
