Lake · Iceland
Grænalón
Lake
- Area
- 9.1km²
- Max depth
- 200m
- Average depth
- 26m
- Elevation
- 512m a.s.l.
- Shoreline
- 15km
- Volume
- 0.231km³
Grænalón is a lake in Iceland. It covers 9.1 km². On average it is 26 m deep, and 200 m at its deepest point. Its surface lies 512 m above sea level.
Plan your visit
Stay, sail and get there
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The water
How warm is Grænalón?
The water is warmest in July, around 14 °C at the surface, and coldest in January, around 0 °C. Even at its warmest, the surface stays below 17 °C on average: this is cold water.
The lake usually freezes over for about 189 days a year, from around 20 October to 26 April.
On the shore, afternoons reach 9 °C on average in July and -1 °C in January. The driest month is June (102 mm of rain), the wettest January (280 mm).
Average surface temperature measured by the Landsat 8 satellite between 2013 and 2021 at the point furthest from the shore (77 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 | — | -1 | -4 | 280 | 22 | 1.1 | 30 |
| February | Ice | — | 0 | -4 | 259 | 20 | 3.6 | 30 |
| March | Ice | — | 0 | -4 | 229 | 22 | 7.8 | 28 |
| April | Ice | — | 2 | -2 | 184 | 19 | 12.0 | 26 |
| May | 4 | 7 | 5 | 1 | 117 | 18 | 14.4 | 22 |
| June | 10 | 12 | 8 | 4 | 102 | 16 | 13.8 | 19 |
| July | 14 | 14 | 9 | 6 | 126 | 18 | 11.1 | 18 |
| August | 13 | 14 | 9 | 5 | 154 | 19 | 9.3 | 19 |
| September | 8 | 11 | 7 | 3 | 241 | 21 | 6.2 | 24 |
| October | 1 | 4 | 3 | 0 | 241 | 20 | 4.3 | 27 |
| November | Ice | — | 1 | -3 | 225 | 20 | 1.9 | 29 |
| December | Ice | — | 0 | -4 | 273 | 22 | 0.7 | 30 |
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 8 months before flowing out.
- Its catchment drains 156 km² of land.
- About 11 m³ of water flow out every second, on average.
Around the shore
What's around Grænalón
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
- —viewpoints
- —hotels, B&Bs and chalets
- —fishing spots
- —restaurants and cafés
Nearest airport with scheduled flights: Hornafjörður Airport (HFN), 105 km in a straight line.
Car hire at HFN airport (Höfn)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 | -0.6 | -0.3 | 0.2 | 2.3 | 4.8 | 7.7 | 9.0 | 8.6 | 6.6 | 3.3 | 0.7 | -0.4 |
| 2020 | −0.2 | −0.7 | −0.9 | +0.1 | −0.1 | +0.1 | −0.2 | +0.3 | −0.7 | +0.3 | −0.1 | −0.5 |
| 2021 | −2.1 | +0.9 | +0.8 | −0.8 | −2.3 | −0.9 | +1.1 | +1.6 | +0.2 | +0.4 | −0.1 | ±0.0 |
| 2022 | +0.4 | −2.5 | +1.4 | +1.2 | +0.8 | +0.1 | −0.1 | −0.3 | +1.0 | +0.1 | +2.7 | −4.5 |
| 2023 | −1.3 | +0.9 | −3.9 | +0.9 | +0.7 | +1.2 | +0.2 | +0.9 | +0.2 | −0.3 | +0.9 | −1.8 |
| 2024 | −0.7 | −1.5 | ±0.0 | −0.6 | +1.0 | −0.6 | ±0.0 | −0.7 | −1.0 | −0.9 | −0.4 | −1.0 |
| 2025 | −1.3 | +2.3 | +1.4 | +1.4 | +3.1 | −0.5 | +1.2 | +0.9 | +0.6 | +0.1 | −1.1 | +2.3 |
+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 (Q943482) · 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.
