Lake · Canada
Cold Lake
Lake on border between Saskatchewan and Alberta in Canada
- Area
- 347km²
- Max depth
- 99m
- Average depth
- 44m
- Elevation
- 531m a.s.l.
- Shoreline
- 117km
- Volume
- 15.1km³
Cold Lake is a lake in Canada. It covers 347 km². On average it is 44 m deep, and 99 m at its deepest point. Its surface lies 531 m above sea level.
Plan your visit
Stay, sail and get there
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The water
How warm is Cold Lake?
The water is warmest in August, around 18 °C at the surface, and coldest in January, around 0 °C. It rarely averages 20 °C, but it stays above 17 °C in August: brisk, refreshing swimming.
The lake usually freezes over for about 160 days a year, from around 19 November to 27 April.
On the shore, afternoons reach 24 °C on average in July and -12 °C in January. The driest month is February (18 mm of rain), the wettest June (91 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 | — | -12 | -20 | 23 | 7 | 3.2 | 11 |
| February | Ice | — | -10 | -19 | 18 | 4 | 5.7 | 11 |
| March | Ice | — | -2 | -12 | 29 | 6 | 7.7 | 12 |
| April | Ice | — | 8 | -3 | 40 | 8 | 8.1 | 13 |
| May | 4 | 8 | 16 | 4 | 53 | 9 | 9.2 | 12 |
| June | 11 | 14 | 21 | 10 | 91 | 14 | 8.3 | 11 |
| July | 16 | 18 | 24 | 13 | 88 | 14 | 9.3 | 11 |
| August | 18 | 18 | 22 | 11 | 52 | 10 | 8.0 | 11 |
| September | 14 | 16 | 16 | 5 | 42 | 8 | 6.1 | 11 |
| October | 8 | 12 | 6 | -2 | 34 | 7 | 4.1 | 11 |
| November | 2 | 5 | -4 | -10 | 24 | 7 | 2.1 | 11 |
| December | Ice | — | -11 | -18 | 20 | 6 | 2.2 | 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 36 years before flowing out.
- Its catchment drains 6,544 km² of land.
- About 13 m³ of water flow out every second, on average.
Around the shore
What's around Cold Lake
Counted within 1.5 km of the shoreline in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit.
- 1beaches and swimming spots
- 5campsites
Cold River Campground, Cold Lake Municipal District Campground, Cold Lake Group Use, Cold Lake Campground, French Bay on Cold Lake M.D. Park
- —boat hire and water-sport clubs
- 5marinas and slipways
Cold Lake Marina
- —ferry piers
- 1viewpoints
- 2hotels, B&Bs and chalets
Dockside Inn, Lakeshore Inn
- —fishing spots
- 8restaurants and cafés
Towns on the shore
- Cold Lake11,595 people
Nearest airport with scheduled flights: Bonnyville Airport (YBY), 48 km in a straight line.
Car hire at YMM airport (Fort McMurray)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 | -11.5 | -9.5 | -2.5 | 7.5 | 16.1 | 20.6 | 23.6 | 22.4 | 16.0 | 6.3 | -3.6 | -10.7 |
| 2020 | −1.6 | +1.6 | −3.5 | −4.8 | −1.3 | −2.5 | −1.8 | −0.5 | −0.8 | −3.5 | −0.8 | +4.1 |
| 2021 | +2.6 | −6.2 | +4.8 | +0.5 | −1.1 | +2.7 | +3.6 | +1.0 | +1.6 | +2.3 | +2.1 | −6.4 |
| 2022 | −0.1 | −1.9 | −1.1 | −2.5 | −2.4 | −1.2 | −0.4 | +3.3 | +3.7 | +5.4 | −2.2 | −5.9 |
| 2023 | +1.5 | +0.3 | −4.0 | −0.4 | +5.0 | +3.4 | −0.4 | +0.3 | +2.9 | +2.0 | +2.9 | +6.3 |
| 2024 | −2.4 | +4.4 | −1.0 | +2.8 | −2.4 | −3.6 | +3.7 | +1.8 | +3.6 | +1.9 | −0.8 | +0.8 |
| 2025 | +2.0 | −5.0 | +1.9 | +2.3 | +2.7 | −0.8 | ±0.0 | +2.1 | +4.7 | +2.7 | +1.8 | −5.5 |
+1 warmer than usual −1 cooler than usual
Nearby
More lakes nearby
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 (Q740663) · 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.
