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What to expect in FEBRUARY 2004

Statistics

	Average temperature 22.9 C Average rainfall 4.6 mm Cloud cover 2.2/10 Humidity 62 % Rainy days 0.9 Sunshine 275.5 hrs.

February is a transitional month, its beginning still in the Northern 'winter', but its ending in the first days of the hot, dry season. Down here in Chiang Mai, in other words, we can expect the nights and mornings to be distinctly chilly in the early days, but far less so as March approaches. The range of temperatures between early morning and mid-afternoon evens out as the mounth goes on, in the earlier part somewhere around 13 C to be expected, while by the end it will have come down to a difference of about 8 or 9 C.

In one respect though February is not transitional but extreme, being the month likely to have the least - or no - rainfall. The forty-odd year average is 4.6 mm, occurring in 0.9 of a day. So you can stash your rain-gear, but keep a light pully on hand.

This is also the month when the haze builds up, Doi Suthep often invisible even from the west end of Chiang Mai city.

As usual, things can be a little different up in the hills, where it's likely to be a lot colder than down on the plain, and possibly a bit wetter too. In fact your weatherman remembers a climb on Doi Chiang Dao that still evokes a shudder. Inside sleeping bags, fully clothed, and next to a fire, trying to sleep out near the top of the mountain, he and his companions froze their well-protected butts off. Then in the morning, blasted by a wind out of the North Pole, they plunged into ten-foot high grass saturated with icy dew, and proceeded to have the rest of their anatomies frosted ever. Things warmed up as the day went on, though, and after reaching one of the three spectacular peaks of the mountain and drinking the rest of their water-supply (next to nothing available on a limestone mountain, naturaly), they were parched till they came down the sleep east face and reached the fleshpots of Ban Tarn (Cave Village).

In other world, out in the sticks - and particularly up in the higher hills - be ready for anything where the weather's concerned.