Lake · United States
Berkeley Pit
Mine
- Area
- 1.1km²
- Average depth
- 19m
- Elevation
- 1,581m a.s.l.
- Shoreline
- 4.5km
- Volume
- 0.021km³
Berkeley Pit is a lake in United States. It covers 1.1 km². On average it is 19 m deep. Its surface lies 1,581 m above sea level.
Plan your visit
Stay, sail and get there
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The water
How warm is Berkeley Pit?
The water is warmest in July, around 25 °C at the surface, and coldest in January, around 0 °C. The surface averages 20 °C or more from June to August: comfortable for most swimmers.
The lake usually freezes over for about 73 days a year, from around 7 December to 17 February.
On the shore, afternoons reach 26 °C on average in July and -3 °C in December. The driest month is January (28 mm of rain), the wettest June (79 mm).
Average surface temperature measured by the Landsat 8 satellite between 2013 and 2021 at the point furthest from the shore (129 readings). Shallow bays and beaches are often warmer.
From above
The whole lake from space
Month by month
The year at the lake, month by month
Not a forecast: these are averages over many years. Water is the 2013–2021 average; air, rain, sun and wind are the 1991–2020 average.
Water: 2013–2021 averageClimate: 1991–2020 average
| Month | Water°C | Water high°C | Air high°C | Air low°C | Rainmm | Rainy daysdays | Sunh/day | Windkm/h |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | Ice | — | -2 | -13 | 28 | 8 | 4.1 | 11 |
| February | Ice | — | -1 | -13 | 32 | 9 | 5.6 | 11 |
| March | 4 | 6 | 4 | -8 | 40 | 11 | 6.6 | 11 |
| April | 9 | 12 | 8 | -4 | 58 | 14 | 7.3 | 10 |
| May | 16 | 19 | 14 | 0 | 74 | 16 | 8.2 | 9 |
| June | 22 | 24 | 20 | 5 | 79 | 15 | 9.7 | 8 |
| July | 25 | 25 | 26 | 9 | 34 | 10 | 12.2 | 7 |
| August | 23 | 25 | 25 | 8 | 37 | 10 | 10.4 | 7 |
| September | 16 | 20 | 19 | 3 | 41 | 8 | 8.3 | 8 |
| October | 9 | 12 | 10 | -3 | 39 | 10 | 5.8 | 9 |
| November | 3 | 5 | 2 | -8 | 34 | 9 | 3.9 | 10 |
| December | Ice | — | -3 | -13 | 33 | 9 | 3.1 | 10 |
Water: LakeTEMP (Landsat 8, 2013–2021). Air, rain, sun and wind: NASA POWER, 1991–2020 averages. A rainy day has at least 1 mm of rain. Sunshine hours are derived from measured solar radiation.
Size & depth
How big, how deep
- On average, water stays in the lake for about 3.3 years before flowing out.
- Its catchment drains 61 km² of land.
- About 0.2 m³ of water flow out every second, on average.
Around the shore
What's around Berkeley Pit
Counted within 1.5 km of the shoreline in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit.
- —beaches and swimming spots
- —campsites
- —boat hire and water-sport clubs
- —marinas and slipways
- —ferry piers
- 3viewpoints
Berkeley Pit Viewing Stand, Speculator Mine Disaster Memorial
- 3hotels, B&Bs and chalets
Finlen Hotel and Motor Inn, The Miner's Boutique Hotel, Motel 6 Butte - Historic City Center
- —fishing spots
- 18restaurants and cafés
Towns on the shore
- Butte34,190 people
Nearest airport with scheduled flights: Bert Mooney Airport (BTM), 7 km in a straight line.
Car hire at HLN airport (Helena)Discover Cars · Affiliate linkOpenStreetMap is built by volunteers: when a number is low, it may just mean nobody has mapped it yet.
Recent years
How each month compared
Afternoon high on the shore. The first row is the reference, the 1991–2020 average in °C; the years below show the difference from it: warmer in orange, cooler in blue.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1991–2020 average | -2.4 | -1.3 | 3.9 | 8.2 | 14.2 | 19.6 | 26.3 | 24.8 | 18.7 | 9.6 | 2.3 | -2.8 |
| 2020 | +0.8 | −0.2 | −0.3 | −0.1 | +0.6 | −1.2 | −2.1 | +0.7 | +1.7 | ±0.0 | +0.3 | +2.9 |
| 2021 | +1.6 | −4.1 | +0.5 | +0.5 | −0.9 | +6.4 | +3.7 | −0.4 | +2.3 | +1.0 | +2.8 | +1.3 |
| 2022 | +0.5 | +0.7 | +1.3 | −3.2 | −2.3 | −0.1 | +2.0 | +3.1 | +3.2 | +3.2 | −3.0 | −0.5 |
| 2023 | −0.3 | ±0.0 | −4.0 | −0.6 | +3.1 | −1.5 | +0.1 | −0.5 | +0.5 | +1.3 | +2.0 | +4.4 |
| 2024 | +0.8 | +1.7 | +0.4 | +1.8 | −1.2 | +2.5 | +1.7 | +0.8 | +2.9 | +4.9 | +0.3 | +4.4 |
| 2025 | −0.6 | −1.2 | +2.2 | +1.6 | +2.6 | +2.5 | +0.1 | +0.6 | +3.5 | +0.7 | +4.2 | +5.0 |
+1 warmer than usual −1 cooler than usual
Nearby
More lakes nearby
United States340 km² · 241 km away16°maxFlathead LakeUnited States487 km² · 245 km away20°maxJackson LakeUnited States106 km² · 276 km away19°maxLake McDonaldUnited States27.1 km² · 305 km away19°maxSaint Mary LakeUnited States15.0 km² · 307 km away16°maxCoeur D'Alene LakeUnited States126 km² · 368 km away22°maxAbout these numbers
| Outline, area, depth, volume | HydroLAKES v1.0 (Messager et al. 2016) · CC BY 4.0 |
|---|---|
| Water temperature and ice | LakeTEMP v1 (Korver et al. 2024), Landsat 8 2013–2021 · CC BY 4.0 |
| Air, rain, sun, wind | NASA POWER, 1991–2020 · public domain |
| Names and description | Wikidata (Q820869) · CC0 |
| Around the shore | © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL |
| Images | EOX Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 · CC BY 4.0; Wikimedia Commons |
Every figure is an average or a count from a public dataset. Licences and methods: data sources.
