This pretty much summarizes the Chiang Rai weather in March and the first half of April:

March was unrelentingly hot. One day I sought refuge from the heat in an air conditioned pizaa and pasta restaurant. I enjoyed a good pasta lunch in air conditioned comfort, and temporarily forgot about the heat. After I was done, I went up to the front to pay the cashier. While she was totaling up the bill and I was looking down at my wallet for the right combination of bills, I was hit by a blast of very hot air. “That’s strange”, I thought, “they have the pizza oven up here at the front.” I looked up and realized that the front door had been opened, and the outside air was rushing in.  Thankfully thundershowers have arrived in April—high winds, spectacular lightening, impressive thunder, and cooler temperatures, at least at night.

February–April is “burning season” in rural Thailand, Myanmar, and Laos. Farmers burn rice stubble, sugar cane stubble, roadside undergrowth, and household trash. The air is noticeably dirty. The sun is a pumpkin orange at sunrise and sunset. During the day, the overhead sky is never quite cyan blue, rather a desaturated grayish blue. It never got so bad that my eyes and throat were stinging, but I don’t like it. It’s almost a deal breaker for me as far as living in Chiang Rai. Next year I might consider spending at least the month of March somewhere else. Now that it is raining for an hour or so most nights, the air has gotten noticeably cleaner. The chart below shows the effect of the rain. The air quality was always in the yellow zone in March, and as high as 150.  Now that it is raining at night, the air quality has improved into the green “OK to breathe” zone

Today is better than tomorrow.

Kevin