Lake · India
Dal Lake
Lake in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India
- Area
- 11.7km²
- Max depth
- 6m
- Average depth
- 3.1m
- Elevation
- 1,581m a.s.l.
- Shoreline
- 44km
- Volume
- 0.036km³
Dal Lake is a lake in India. It covers 11.7 km². On average it is 3.1 m deep, and 6 m at its deepest point. 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 Dal Lake?
The water is warmest in July, around 27 °C at the surface, and coldest in January, around 3 °C. The surface averages 20 °C or more from May to September: comfortable for most swimmers.
It does not normally freeze in winter.
On the shore, afternoons reach 25 °C on average in July and 3 °C in January. The driest month is October (23 mm of rain), the wettest March (104 mm).
Average surface temperature measured by the Landsat 8 satellite between 2013 and 2021 at the point furthest from the shore (101 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 | 3 | 4 | 3 | -8 | 67 | 7 | 2.6 | 8 |
| February | 6 | 8 | 4 | -6 | 94 | 9 | 1.9 | 9 |
| March | 11 | 14 | 9 | -2 | 104 | 10 | 3.3 | 8 |
| April | 17 | 19 | 15 | 3 | 98 | 10 | 5.6 | 8 |
| May | 21 | 23 | 20 | 8 | 58 | 9 | 7.8 | 8 |
| June | 25 | 26 | 24 | 11 | 58 | 9 | 8.7 | 8 |
| July | 27 | 27 | 25 | 13 | 78 | 13 | 8.6 | 8 |
| August | 26 | 27 | 24 | 13 | 83 | 12 | 8.0 | 8 |
| September | 24 | 25 | 21 | 9 | 42 | 6 | 8.4 | 7 |
| October | 18 | 21 | 16 | 4 | 23 | 3 | 8.3 | 7 |
| November | 10 | 14 | 11 | -1 | 36 | 3 | 5.8 | 7 |
| December | 4 | 7 | 6 | -5 | 32 | 4 | 3.9 | 8 |
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 56 days before flowing out.
- Its catchment drains 335 km² of land.
- About 7.4 m³ of water flow out every second, on average.
- Its shoreline is 3.6 times longer than a circle of the same area: plenty of bays and inlets.
Around the shore
What's around Dal Lake
Counted within 1.5 km of the shoreline in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit.
- —beaches and swimming spots
- —campsites
- 27boat hire and water-sport clubs
Ghat No. 14 Directorate of Tourism, Jetty No. 4 Directorate of Tourism, Ghat No. 5 Directorate of Tourism, Ghat No. 12 Directorate of Tourism, Ghat No. 16 Directorate of Tourism and 22 more
- —marinas and slipways
- —ferry piers
- 2viewpoints
Parimahal, Shankaracharya Reserved Forest
- 89hotels, B&Bs and chalets
Hotel Mount Inn, Vivanta by Taj, ehsan guesthouse, Diplomat, Green Hill and 84 more
- 1fishing spots
Nishat fishing spot
- 63restaurants and cafés
Towns on the shore
- Badāmibāgh22,214 people
Nearest airport with scheduled flights: Srinagar International Airport (SXR), 16 km in a straight line.
Car hire at IXC airport (Chandigarh)Discover Cars · Affiliate linkOpenStreetMap is built by volunteers: when a number is low, it may just mean nobody has mapped it yet.
Photos
Seen by visitors
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 | 3.0 | 4.4 | 9.4 | 14.9 | 19.9 | 23.7 | 24.8 | 23.6 | 21.2 | 16.5 | 10.6 | 5.9 |
| 2020 | −3.6 | +0.1 | −3.3 | −3.3 | −3.2 | −3.2 | −1.4 | +0.5 | −0.7 | +0.1 | −2.1 | −2.6 |
| 2021 | −0.3 | +2.5 | −0.1 | −2.7 | −3.5 | −2.1 | −0.4 | −0.3 | +1.6 | −0.6 | ±0.0 | −0.6 |
| 2022 | −1.9 | −1.6 | +2.4 | +3.1 | +0.8 | −1.2 | −2.0 | −1.4 | −0.3 | −0.3 | −0.9 | +1.0 |
| 2023 | −1.4 | +0.9 | −0.4 | −2.1 | −4.9 | −3.4 | −2.9 | −0.3 | +0.9 | −0.4 | +0.7 | +2.5 |
| 2024 | +3.6 | −2.0 | −2.1 | −2.8 | −0.2 | −0.7 | +1.2 | +0.2 | +1.7 | +2.0 | +2.6 | −0.3 |
| 2025 | +2.0 | +1.3 | −0.8 | +2.2 | −0.2 | −0.1 | −0.8 | −0.3 | −0.1 | −0.7 | +1.3 | +3.5 |
+1 warmer than usual −1 cooler than usual
PakistanAbout 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 (Q325391) · 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.
