Weather in Surat Thani in December

Shoulder season. December sits in between. You will get good days and you will lose some. You should expect rain on 19 days of the month, which is more days wet than dry.

December ranks 4 of 12 in Surat Thani: past the worst of the year but short of February, which is the month to book if the dates are open.

This is wet-season rain: 19 wet days and 7 genuinely heavy ones, which in this climate means concentrated downpours rather than all-day grey. The pattern is usually a clear morning and a loud afternoon, so front-load the day and stop fighting the 3pm hour. Natural fibres and a second shirt for the day. At 87% nothing dries, including you.

What the averages hide

Averages flatten a month, and this one hides a few things: 4 days top 30 °C — hot spells arrive, but they break; the day barely swings — 5.2 °C between the overnight low and the afternoon high. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest December day reached 32.1 °C and the coldest night fell to 20.5 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 174 mm — roughly 78% of the month's rain in one day.

December is moderately variable: 73 mm in the driest year against 567 mm in the wettest, around an average of 224 mm. Roughly two Decembers in three land near that average, and the third does something else entirely.

Wind is light at 6.5 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity at 87% is the real story though — it is the number that decides how the day feels, not the 28.9 °C.

How December sits in the year

Temperatures hold steady either side: 29.3 °C in November, 28.9 here, 29.2 in January. Nothing about the timing within the month matters much. Rain is the thing that moves: January brings 7 days less of it, so pushing the dates later buys drier weather.

Daylight in December

Surat Thani sits close enough to the equator that daylight barely moves all year — 11.6 hours in December, against a range of just 1.1 hours across the whole calendar. Sunrise and sunset land at roughly the same time whenever you come.

An inland climate

Despite being inland, the year stays fairly even: 9.9 °C between the year's warmest afternoons and coldest nights.

How busy it gets

Shoulder. The value months — prices ease off and you get the place closer to itself.

Crowd levels are estimated from climate desirability and school-holiday calendars, not from visitor numbers.

December in Surat Thani versus nearby

If Surat Thani is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Krabi is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, 1 day less rain. Hat Yai is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, 3 days more rain.

So: December is a compromise. February is 23 points better and is what Surat Thani is actually like at its best — worth moving the trip for if that is possible, and worth adjusting expectations for if it is not.

Every month in Surat Thani

See all twelve months in Surat Thani, or where else to go in December.