Split flooded 11 Sept 2026: 77 l/m² in an hour, what visitors need to know

Status as of Saturday 12 September 2026. The storm reached Split on Friday 11 September between 9 and 10 in the morning as a line stretching from the sea across the city and the Mosor mountain towards Dugopolje and Trilj. The weather station at the Prirodoslovna škola recorded 77 litres per square metre by 10:00, according to the Crometeo meteorological society; the long-term September average at the Split-Marjan station is 71 litres for the whole month. The temperature fell to 19 to 21 degrees, eight to nine degrees lower than on Thursday at the same hour. A time-lapse of the storm front rolling in over Kaštel Sućurac was the most shared video of the day.

What took water

The public fire brigade JVP Split with the volunteer units of Split and Žrnovnica counted about 130 interventions, almost all pumping water out of buildings. Both hospitals were hit: at KBC Split on Firule water broke through the floor, walls and ceiling of the newly renovated physiotherapy hall of the institute for physical medicine, and at Križine the crews pumped out the dialysis unit and the mortuary. The sports hall at Gripe, kindergartens, a school, garages, shops and apartment basements across the lower parts of the city filled up, and in Vukovarska street a lift shaft stood two metres deep in water in the evening. Traffic in the city collapsed for hours. In Kaštela the sea and the streets merged for a while, as a video from the shore shows. The reports mention no injuries.

Why an hour of rain does this

It was the first heavy rain after a long dry spell. The ground was baked hard and took nothing in, so the water ran straight down the slopes into the lower city and its drains. Business owners at Gripe told Index that the drainage shafts are not maintained and were blocked before the storm; a resident summed up the local experience as every heavy rain flooding all of Split. Index put questions to the city and to the public company that runs the Gripe complex; no answer had arrived by publication. This report will note the city's response if one follows.

The warning came the evening before

The national weather service DHMZ had issued an orange warning for central Dalmatia for Friday on Thursday evening, for the possibility of strong thunderstorms. The signs were there: on Thursday north-western Istria had already taken 50 to 70 litres per square metre, the sea in Stari Grad on Hvar stood 17 centimetres above normal, and at the end of the week DHMZ expected the weather to settle once the front had passed. The live warning map is at meteo.hr; our guide explains what yellow, orange and red mean in practice.

If you are in Split this weekend

• Roads: HAK's report at 12:08 on Saturday lists no closure in or around Split. City traffic is back to normal.
• Ferries and the airport: none of the reports mention disruption, and Jadrolinija's notices carry no Split entry. Check your own departure as usual.
• When the next warning is orange: stay out of underpasses and underground garages, do not park in dips, and keep off the Marjan and Mosor trails, which turn into streams.
• Swimming: the sea near storm-water outlets is murky after a downpour like this. Give it a day, then Bačvice and Žnjan are what they were.
• Twenty kilometres away, on Brač, the same Friday was the second day of a wildfire that has burned about 1,500 hectares; the rain did not reach it. Our separate report has the details.