Times of High Tide Floods in Bangkok October 2012

Every year around October, communities living along the Chao Phraya River suffer from high tide floods. It doesn’t matter if it has been raining or not. It will nearly always flood during high tides. This is due to a combination of the run-off from up north making the river higher than normal and also the king high tides. A certain weather condition will also worsen the flood. All of this without one drop of rain. In fact, when I took these pictures the other year, it hadn’t rained for over two weeks.

As the high tides can be predicted in advance, it is then possible to warn people living along the river to move their belongings higher during these periods. The king high tides are the ones more than 3 meters above the lowest high tide. It usually results in floods for about 2-3 hours though it could last longer if water becomes trapped. Although we know when the high tide will be, we cannot predict how bad the flood will be as that depends on how high the river is and atmospheric conditions at that time.

The following high tides are for Royal Thai Navy Headquarters in Bangkok: 

Mon 15 October – 5:22 p.m. > 2.97 meters
Tue 16 October – 7:16 a.m. > 3.02 meters | 5:42 p.m. > 3.03 meters
Wed 17 October –  7:59 a.m. > 3.13 meters | 6:12 p.m. > 3.09 meters
Thu 18 October – 8:47 a.m. > 3.18 meters | 6:47 p.m. > 3.12 meters
Fri 19 October –  9:51 a.m. > 3.17 meters | 7:27 p.m. > 3.12 meters
Sat 20 October – 11:12 a.m. > 3.14 meters | 8:09 p.m. 3.08 meters
Sun 21 October – 12:29 p.m. > 3.11 meters | 8:56 p.m. > 3.00 meters
Mon 22 October – 1:33 p.m. > 3.08 meters | 9:49 p.m. > 2.87 meters