Lake · Egypt
Great Bitter Lake
Salt water lake that is part of the Suez Canal in Egypt
- Area
- 205km²
- Average depth
- 6.3m
- Elevation
- 0m a.s.l.
- Shoreline
- 115km
- Volume
- 1.3km³
Great Bitter Lake is a lake in Egypt. It covers 205 km². On average it is 6.3 m deep. 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 Great Bitter Lake?
The water is warmest in August, around 30 °C at the surface, and coldest in January, around 16 °C. The surface averages 20 °C or more from April to November: comfortable for most swimmers.
It does not normally freeze in winter.
On the shore, afternoons reach 37 °C on average in July and 18 °C in January. The driest month is August (0 mm of rain), the wettest January (11 mm).
Average surface temperature measured by the Landsat 8 satellite between 2013 and 2021 at the point furthest from the shore (116 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 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 7 | 11 | 3 | 7.2 | 14 |
| February | 16 | 17 | 20 | 8 | 10 | 3 | 7.8 | 14 |
| March | 18 | 20 | 24 | 10 | 9 | 2 | 9.4 | 15 |
| April | 21 | 23 | 28 | 12 | 10 | 1 | 10.6 | 15 |
| May | 24 | 26 | 32 | 16 | 1 | 0 | 11.9 | 15 |
| June | 27 | 28 | 35 | 19 | 1 | 0 | 13.1 | 14 |
| July | 29 | 30 | 37 | 21 | 1 | 0 | 12.9 | 13 |
| August | 30 | 30 | 36 | 22 | 0 | 0 | 12.1 | 13 |
| September | 28 | 29 | 33 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 10.8 | 14 |
| October | 26 | 27 | 29 | 18 | 4 | 1 | 9.2 | 13 |
| November | 22 | 24 | 24 | 13 | 9 | 2 | 7.9 | 13 |
| December | 18 | 20 | 20 | 9 | 7 | 2 | 7.2 | 13 |
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
- Its catchment drains 2,806 km² of land.
Around the shore
What's around Great Bitter Lake
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
- 4hotels, B&Bs and chalets
Tulip Fayed Hotel, Tropicana compound, El Morgan Hotel, Al gazira al bydaa
- —fishing spots
- —restaurants and cafés
Towns on the shore
- Fāyīd35,066 people
Nearest airport with scheduled flights: Capital International Airport (CCE), 59 km in a straight line.
Car hire at CAI airport (Cairo)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 | 18.0 | 20.0 | 23.7 | 27.6 | 32.0 | 34.9 | 36.7 | 36.3 | 33.3 | 29.4 | 24.3 | 19.7 |
| 2020 | −1.1 | −0.7 | −0.5 | −2.2 | −1.6 | −1.1 | −0.5 | +0.1 | +1.7 | +1.4 | −0.3 | +1.5 |
| 2021 | +1.9 | +0.4 | −1.5 | +0.3 | +2.1 | −0.8 | +0.8 | +1.3 | +0.5 | −0.2 | +2.2 | −0.4 |
| 2022 | −1.9 | −1.3 | −4.2 | +1.2 | −0.6 | +0.7 | −0.1 | ±0.0 | +0.7 | ±0.0 | +0.3 | +1.9 |
| 2023 | +1.5 | −2.1 | +1.0 | +0.5 | −0.6 | +0.4 | +1.7 | +0.4 | +2.3 | +1.2 | +1.8 | +2.3 |
| 2024 | +1.4 | −0.2 | +0.5 | +1.9 | +0.5 | +3.1 | +2.1 | +1.3 | +1.2 | −0.3 | −0.2 | +0.3 |
| 2025 | +2.0 | −1.9 | +1.9 | +0.9 | +0.6 | +0.6 | +1.7 | +0.3 | +0.1 | +0.4 | +2.9 | +1.0 |
+1 warmer than usual −1 cooler than usual
Jordan
IsraelAbout 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 (Q526440) · 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.
