Plan Trip
Thailand flood & travel safety
Thailand's rainy season produces both routine afternoon downpours and genuine flooding, and the difference matters to a trip. Below are the warnings currently published by the Thai Meteorological Department, then where flood water has actually been detected from space, then the agencies to check for the things neither covers — river levels, highways, trains and emergency help.
Current warnings
Read from the Thai Meteorological Department's public CAP feed, with each bulletin's own publication time. Refreshed at most every 30 minutes, so treat the timestamp as the authority, not this page.
Loading current bulletins…
Thailand disaster information
Where flood water has actually been detected, from GISTDA, Thailand's Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency. Satellite radar observations over a rolling window, by district — an observation of the ground, where the warnings above are a forecast of the weather that may cause one.
Blue is water GISTDA's radar detected in this window, drawn where it was detected.
Reading GISTDA…
Flood extent from Sentinel-1 radar, Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency (GISTDA). A place absent from this data was not observed with water — it was not necessarily dry, and may not have been imaged at all. GISTDA disaster portal (opens in a new window)
What this page is not
It is not a confirmation that any location or route is safe. Three different kinds of information get confused in flood season: a weather warning is a forecast for a broad region, a satellite flood extent is where water was observed at the time of a satellite pass, and a road closure is a decision made by a roads authority. None of the three substitutes for the others. The absence of a reported closure is not evidence that a road is passable, and a road running through a detected flood extent is not a closure either — it is two measurements overlapping on a map.
Official sources
Thai Meteorological Department (opens in a new window)
กรมอุตุนิยมวิทยา
Warnings and heavy-rain forecasts. This is the feed the bulletins above come from.
tmd.go.th ↗
ThaiWater (opens in a new window)
คลังข้อมูลน้ำแห่งชาติ
Rainfall, river levels and reservoir data — the observations behind a flood, rather than a forecast of one.
thaiwater.net ↗
GISTDA disaster platform (opens in a new window)
แผนที่ภัยพิบัติ GISTDA
Satellite-observed flood extent. It shows where water was detected at the time of the pass — not whether a particular road through that area is passable.
disaster.gistda.or.th ↗
Disaster Prevention and Mitigation (opens in a new window)
กรมป้องกันและบรรเทาสาธารณภัย
Official disaster declarations, assistance and provincial notices.
disaster.go.th ↗
Department of Highways (opens in a new window)
กรมทางหลวง
Highway conditions and closures. Check the specific route number you intend to drive.
doh.go.th ↗
State Railway of Thailand (opens in a new window)
การรถไฟแห่งประเทศไทย
Train service announcements, which are often the first confirmation that a southern line is cut.
railway.co.th ↗
If flooding affects your trip
- Follow local evacuation instructions, and move away from rising water rather than waiting to see how high it gets.
- Do not drive, ride or walk through floodwater. Depth is unreadable from the surface and the road under it may be gone.
- Confirm with your hotel and your transport operator before you set off. A province-wide warning does not mean every road is closed, and no warning does not mean every road is open.
- Keep your phone charged and tell someone where you are going.
Emergency numbers
These are national short codes and generally need a Thai mobile connection. 1155 has English-speaking operators; the others may not.
Next