After a record drought, we seem to have moved on to record rainfall this week.

Just a week ago, Praew and I were walking around the pond and wondering why, despite occasional rains, the water level seemed to be stuck at a point that put the whole “floating house” idea in doubt if that was as high as it was going to get this year.

We just came off of a record drought where the rainy season was delayed by several months. Since the pond was only completed a little more than a year ago, it was still 1-1.5m short of the level that I planned as “full” on the pond. And with the rainy season so late this year, I wondered if it would rise much at all over the course of the rainy season. The rains are supposed to begin in May with more than 200mm of monthly rainfall on average in May, but there has been very little by late June.

What a difference a week makes.

With 200mm of rainfall reported in some districts of Bangkok falling in a single day earlier this week, many news reports quote the Bangkok governor as calling this the heaviest rains encountered in Bangkok in over 25 years. Flooding was reported throughout the city. (

And the pond level rose about 500mm almost to the top of the sand filter retention wall in the pond in a matter of 2 or 3 days. There is still about another 500-700mm more to go before reaching my overflow pipe. But with reports of several more storms on the way, I now have very little doubt that the pond will fill up by the end of the rainy season.

For reference, the 500mm of rainfall we seem to have gotten in the pond in 3 days this week is about 30% more than the the average annual rainfall in my native Los Angeles, almost half of the average annual rainfall for New York City, and just a little less than the average annual rainfall in London.

So, the good news is that the pond is filling up nicely

In the bottom picture, you can see the water level rising into the sand filtration zone for the first time since the drought.

Luckily, we finished the second stairway down into the pond before the rains came.

(This picture was earlier in the week. The water level has risen another 10cm or so since then and the little blue boat in this picture sank from all the rain. Luckily there is a shallow walkway in the water there, so we were able to fish it out pretty easily.)

The bad news is that the walkway around BaanMae now acts like a dam retaining the waters in the yard, causing flooding around the house.

So we had to pump a lot of the water out of the yard and push drainage pipes under the walkway to allow the rain water to drain out of the yard and into the canal.

Luckily, the house is raised about 70cm, so there isn’t likely to be any flooding inside the house. 🙂

As I’m writing this, the next batch of heavy rains have just returned. As young Dorothy once remarked, “I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”