Where Thailand Actually Gets Cold This Winter: 21 Provinces Ranked by 10-Year Minimum Temperatures, Not Photos
Every year-end brings a "30 winter destinations" list with beautiful sea-of-mist photos, but none of them says how cold it actually gets there, or whether it rains. So we ranked the places by measured numbers instead.
The table below is the 10-year (2016–2025) average minimum temperature for December and January in 21 provinces people ask about most, ordered from coldest to warmest, with the average rainfall of those two months — the same dataset the weather calendar in our search bar uses.
Chiang Rai is coldest, and January is colder than December almost everywhere
Chiang Rai is the coldest province in the table — a January average minimum of 14.6°C, followed by Mae Hong Son and Nan at 15.7°C, while Chiang Mai and Lamphun sit at 16.6°C. That means Chiang Rai runs about 2 degrees colder than Chiang Mai every morning.
In every province in the table, January is colder than December, except Phuket — people tend to go for the cold in December because of the long holidays, but if the goal is the coldest air, January answers better, with fewer people too.
The upper Northeast: as cold as the North, with far clearer skies
Nakhon Phanom 16.7°C, Bueng Kan 16.8°C, Loei 17.0°C, Sakon Nakhon 17.2°C — within half a degree of Chiang Mai, but with average December rainfall of only 2–10 mm, against 25 mm in Chiang Mai and 29 mm in Chiang Rai.
If you want cold, plus open skies, plus fewer people, the upper Northeast is the answer the usual lists rarely mention. The Mekong riverbank at dawn in Nakhon Phanom, Bueng Kan and Nong Khai is this season's selling point (general knowledge, not a figure from the dataset).
Near Bangkok: Khao Yai, Kanchanaburi, Nakhon Nayok — these figures are the town, not the hills
Nakhon Ratchasima town 19.2°C, Nakhon Nayok 20.8°C, Kanchanaburi 21.1°C do not look cold, but the point measured is the town or provincial centre. High ground such as Khao Yai, Wang Nam Khiao or Khao Kho (Phetchabun town 19.9°C) is much cooler — our roughly 9 km grid dataset cannot resolve hilltop differences. Treat these figures as a "floor" and pack an extra layer when you go up.
These three provinces are the group a booking platform reported as the nature destinations Thai travellers booked most strongly in the first half of 2026 — that is the platform's data, not ours.
The sea of mist is not a number in the table, but the table hints at it
Morning mist needs a cool night and enough moisture in the air (general knowledge, not from our dataset), so provinces with low minimum temperatures next to high ground or a river have better odds. Which day it appears depends on that week's actual weather — we do not announce peak dates; check the Thai Meteorological Department forecast close to your travel date.
If you want below zero, you have to fly
Thailand's coldest is 14.6°C, while nearby cities with a January average minimum below zero: Sapporo −9.2°C, Beijing −6.8°C, Seoul −6.6°C, Busan −1.9°C, Kyoto −0.7°C, Tokyo 0.0°C — whereas Taipei at 13.4°C and Hong Kong at 13.6°C are in the same league as Chiang Rai.
What this dataset cannot tell you
Use the table to choose a province, then use the real forecast to choose the day
- Values are at the town coordinate, not the summit — high ground is always cooler
- 10-year averages — a real year can swing by several degrees
- It does not say which day the sea of mist will appear
- It does not cover the northern haze season, which usually arrives February–April after winter (a seasonal fact, not a figure from our dataset)
Average Dec–Jan minimum temperature and rainfall, 21 provinces (10-year mean)
Ordered coldest to warmest by the January value — all 12 months are on each province page and in the weather calendar in our search bar
| Province | Dec min (°C) | Jan min (°C) | Rain Dec / Jan (mm) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chiang Rai | 15.9 | 14.6 | 29 / 37 |
| Mae Hong Son | 17.0 | 15.7 | 12 / 29 |
| Nan | 16.2 | 15.7 | 15 / 27 |
| Chiang Mai | 17.5 | 16.6 | 25 / 20 |
| Lamphun | 17.7 | 16.6 | 23 / 22 |
| Nakhon Phanom | 16.9 | 16.7 | 4 / 8 |
| Bueng Kan | 17.3 | 16.8 | 2 / 17 |
| Phayao | 17.8 | 16.9 | 19 / 26 |
| Loei | 17.3 | 17.0 | 10 / 13 |
| Lampang | 18.0 | 17.2 | 16 / 19 |
| Sakon Nakhon | 17.5 | 17.2 | 4 / 10 |
| Udon Thani | 17.8 | 17.5 | 3 / 13 |
| Nong Khai | 18.2 | 17.9 | 4 / 15 |
| Khon Kaen | 18.8 | 18.5 | 6 / 8 |
| Nakhon Ratchasima | 19.4 | 19.2 | 9 / 9 |
| Phetchabun | 20.0 | 19.9 | 10 / 16 |
| Nakhon Nayok | 20.9 | 20.8 | 10 / 18 |
| Kanchanaburi | 21.7 | 21.1 | 15 / 19 |
| Prachuap Khiri Khan (Hua Hin) | 23.3 | 22.5 | 37 / 63 |
| Bangkok | 22.5 | 22.4 | 19 / 23 |
| Phuket | 24.5 | 24.6 | 140 / 78 |
Values at the town or provincial-centre coordinate — hills and high ground are always cooler. A real year can differ a lot from the mean; check the actual forecast close to your travel date.
Official links to check yourself
- Thai Meteorological Department ↗ (opens in a new tab)
The real forecast for the week you travel — our table is an average, not a forecast
Frequently asked questions
- Which province is the coldest in Thailand?
- On 10-year averages at the town coordinate, Chiang Rai is coldest (January average minimum 14.6°C), followed by Mae Hong Son and Nan at 15.7°C — the hills in every province are much cooler than this.
- Is December or January colder?
- January — in all 21 provinces in the table the January average minimum is lower than December's, except Phuket where the two are almost identical.
- Does the Northeast get cold in winter?
- Almost as cold as the North — Nakhon Phanom 16.7°C, Bueng Kan 16.8°C, Loei 17.0°C, close to Chiang Mai's 16.6°C, but with far less December rain (2–10 mm against 25 mm), so the skies are clearer.
Where the numbers come from: Every temperature and rainfall figure in this article is a 2016–2025 monthly mean from the ERA5 dataset (via the Open-Meteo Historical Weather API) at each city's coordinate — a 10-year statistic, not a forecast for your trip. Any single year can differ a lot from the mean. ERA5 is a roughly 9 km reanalysis grid, not a reading from any one weather station. This is the same dataset the weather calendar in rooozt's search bar displays.