When you live in a place that's well known for a specific type of weather, you pretty much have two choices. Either you deal with it as well as you can, or you move away. As a lifelong Chicago resident, one of the first things people not from this area usually want to talk to me about is Chicago winters.
From a lifetime of experience, I can tell you that sometimes they're mild, and other times, they bury us in snow and then proceed to ice us over. Still other times, we get hit with serious blizzards, of the type where you get snowed in wherever you're at, and you'd better hope it's warm and dry because the roads are nigh impassable. The city has warming centers that open up that people can go to, but it's still a regional struggle while winter is busy biting back.
Now, the city of Hat Yai, Thailand has a much different common precipitation problem: Flooding. While there have been several bad floods causing loss of life and wrecking homes, businesses, and livelihoods in the past, the one that hit Hat Yai (and also ravaged other parts of Southeast Asia) in late November 2025 was especially bad. There's a reason folks have been referring to it as "a 300-year flood."
