Mekong watchers might have seen images from the massive Mekong flooding in southern Laos and northeast Thailand but drought conditions still persist in the upper portions of the basin (from Vientiane upstream) and the Tonle Sap.

Satellite imagery of the Tonle Sap lake has been very cloudy over the last 10 days and our team was really hoping for good news that now the Tonle Sap River has reversed direction at Phnom Penh we’d see much more flooding in and around the lake. The lake will produce a fish catch of up to 500,000 tons if the Mekong pulse is strong, but the comparative image of Kampong Kleang fishing village shows that flood conditions there are still very much off the mark for a normal year (compared to 2017).

There is a very cloudy satellite image of the Tonle Sap bottleneck area (Chhnok Tru) that shows major flooding there. This could be a good sign that lakeside areas like Kampong Khleang will flood in the coming days or weeks, but it will take more strong easterly storms to produce this effect.