Our ‘Rainy’ Season to be Re-named?
A few years ago there was a move in Chiang Mai to re-name the annual wet season to “The Green Season.”
This could now be a step closer with far less than average rainfall so far this year. The main reservoir feeding our city is dramatically lower than this time last year.
Mae Kuang Dam, west of Doi Saket, is at its second lowest October level for many years, and the last time this happened there was a drought by early March. Water was cut off for many hours to different parts of the city at different times of the day and night.
Mae Kuang’s green island (pictured from one of the two restaurants on the banks) can only be seen at low water, a most unusual sight at a time when ‘the big rains’ are normally at an end.
The level of our other huge dam east of Memalai, Mae Ngat, is said to be ‘average’, but supplies are not easy from so far north. However, by this time next year, a long tunel feeding water from Mae Ngat into Mae Kuang, should have been completed, and city droughts hopefully consigned to history.
