Lake · Canada
Bras d'Or Lake
Lake in Nova Scotia, Canada
- Area
- 1,067km²
- Max depth
- 280m
- Average depth
- 30m
- Elevation
- 0m a.s.l.
- Shoreline
- 1,120km
- Volume
- 32.0km³
Bras d'Or Lake is a lake in Canada. It covers 1,067 km². On average it is 30 m deep, and 280 m at its deepest point. Its surface lies 0 m above sea level.
Plan your visit
Stay, sail and get there
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The water
How warm is Bras d'Or Lake?
The water is warmest in August, around 20 °C at the surface, and coldest in February, around 0 °C. The surface averages 20 °C or more in August: comfortable for most swimmers.
The lake usually freezes over for about 81 days a year, from around 18 January to 8 April.
On the shore, afternoons reach 23 °C on average in August and -2 °C in February. The driest month is July (78 mm of rain), the wettest December (134 mm).
Average surface temperature measured by the Landsat 8 satellite between 2013 and 2021 at the point furthest from the shore (66 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 | 0 | 2 | -2 | -8 | 105 | 14 | 1.2 | 23 |
| February | Ice | — | -2 | -8 | 94 | 12 | 2.3 | 24 |
| March | Ice | — | 1 | -6 | 86 | 13 | 3.9 | 23 |
| April | 1 | 3 | 6 | -1 | 97 | 13 | 5.7 | 21 |
| May | 6 | 9 | 12 | 4 | 85 | 13 | 6.5 | 19 |
| June | 13 | 16 | 17 | 9 | 105 | 14 | 6.8 | 18 |
| July | 19 | 20 | 22 | 14 | 78 | 13 | 7.3 | 16 |
| August | 20 | 21 | 23 | 16 | 91 | 13 | 7.0 | 17 |
| September | 18 | 20 | 19 | 12 | 96 | 12 | 5.7 | 19 |
| October | 13 | 16 | 13 | 7 | 120 | 13 | 3.6 | 21 |
| November | 8 | 10 | 7 | 2 | 117 | 15 | 1.6 | 22 |
| December | 4 | 6 | 2 | -3 | 134 | 16 | 0.8 | 24 |
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 139 years before flowing out.
- Its catchment drains 216 km² of land.
- About 7.3 m³ of water flow out every second, on average.
- Its shoreline is 9.7 times longer than a circle of the same area: plenty of bays and inlets.
Around the shore
What's around Bras d'Or Lake
Counted within 1.5 km of the shoreline in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit.
- 24beaches and swimming spots
East Bay Sand Bar, Crooked Beach, MacNeils Beach, MacSweens Beach, The Barrachois and 19 more
- 15campsites
Campground, Whycocomagh Campground, Driftwood Tent & Trailer Park, Mountain Vista Seaside Campground, Arm of Gold Campground and 10 more
- —boat hire and water-sport clubs
- 13marinas and slipways
Ben Eoin Yacht Club & Marina and 12 more
- 2ferry piers
Little Narrows (west), Little Narrows (east)
- 8viewpoints
Look-Off #2, Salt Mountain ViewPoint #1, Look Off, Powerline Road Outlook and 4 more
- 53hotels, B&Bs and chalets
Fitzgerald's Restaurant & Motel, Baddeck Inn, Cabot Trail Motel, Trailsman Motel, Celtic Mist Country Inn and 48 more
- 1fishing spots
Morris
- 33restaurants and cafés
Towns on the shore
- Eskasoni 33,521 people
- St. Peter's2,634 people
- Florence1,684 people
Nearest airport with scheduled flights: Sydney / J.A. Douglas McCurdy Airport (YQY), 69 km in a straight line.
Car hire at YQY airport (Sydney)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 | -1.5 | -1.9 | 0.8 | 5.8 | 11.6 | 16.7 | 21.9 | 22.7 | 19.2 | 12.9 | 7.2 | 1.8 |
| 2020 | +0.1 | +0.9 | +0.1 | −0.4 | ±0.0 | +1.5 | +0.3 | +0.6 | +0.8 | +0.3 | +1.4 | +3.0 |
| 2021 | +1.9 | +1.3 | +1.7 | +1.1 | −0.7 | +2.5 | −1.5 | +1.7 | +1.5 | +1.6 | +2.0 | +0.9 |
| 2022 | +2.1 | +1.8 | +0.9 | +0.3 | +0.5 | +1.1 | +0.8 | +1.2 | +0.2 | +1.8 | +0.9 | +1.4 |
| 2023 | +3.9 | −0.1 | +0.1 | +0.7 | −0.7 | +0.1 | +1.8 | −0.8 | +1.3 | +1.7 | −1.4 | +1.4 |
| 2024 | +0.6 | +1.8 | +2.1 | ±0.0 | +0.8 | +1.5 | +2.0 | +1.5 | +0.9 | +0.4 | +0.9 | +0.3 |
| 2025 | +0.7 | −0.7 | +2.0 | −0.1 | +0.5 | +2.1 | +2.1 | +1.1 | +1.6 | +2.3 | −0.4 | −1.0 |
+1 warmer than usual −1 cooler than usual
About 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 (Q898989) · 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.
