Lake · Mongolia
Hoh Nuur
Lake and lowest point in Mongolia
- Area
- 97.5km²
- Average depth
- 2.8m
- Elevation
- 565m a.s.l.
- Shoreline
- 50km
- Volume
- 0.278km³
Hoh Nuur is a lake in Mongolia. It covers 97.5 km². On average it is 2.8 m deep. Its surface lies 565 m above sea level.
Plan your visit
Stay, sail and get there
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The water
How warm is Hoh Nuur?
The water is warmest in July, around 22 °C at the surface, and coldest in January, around 0 °C. The surface averages 20 °C or more from July to August: comfortable for most swimmers.
The lake usually freezes over for about 164 days a year, from around 30 October to 11 April.
On the shore, afternoons reach 29 °C on average in July and -16 °C in January. The driest month is February (3 mm of rain), the wettest July (69 mm).
Average surface temperature measured by the Landsat 8 satellite between 2013 and 2021 at the point furthest from the shore (122 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 | — | -16 | -25 | 4 | 1 | 6.8 | 16 |
| February | Ice | — | -11 | -22 | 3 | 1 | 8.9 | 17 |
| March | Ice | — | -1 | -12 | 6 | 2 | 10.0 | 18 |
| April | 2 | 5 | 10 | -3 | 10 | 3 | 9.9 | 21 |
| May | 10 | 14 | 19 | 5 | 27 | 6 | 10.0 | 20 |
| June | 17 | 20 | 26 | 13 | 49 | 10 | 10.1 | 15 |
| July | 22 | 22 | 29 | 16 | 69 | 13 | 9.1 | 14 |
| August | 21 | 22 | 26 | 13 | 55 | 11 | 8.8 | 14 |
| September | 16 | 19 | 19 | 5 | 25 | 6 | 8.5 | 16 |
| October | 5 | 11 | 7 | -4 | 10 | 3 | 7.2 | 16 |
| November | Ice | — | -5 | -13 | 5 | 1 | 5.6 | 17 |
| December | Ice | — | -14 | -22 | 5 | 1 | 5.1 | 16 |
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 17 years before flowing out.
- Its catchment drains 1,420 km² of land.
- About 0.5 m³ of water flow out every second, on average.
Around the shore
What's around Hoh Nuur
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: Manzhouli Xijiao Airport (NZH), 126 km in a straight line.
OpenStreetMap 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 | -16.4 | -11.0 | -0.8 | 10.2 | 18.9 | 26.5 | 28.7 | 26.1 | 18.6 | 7.0 | -5.0 | -14.3 |
| 2020 | +2.1 | +2.2 | +1.9 | +2.5 | +0.4 | −1.2 | +0.1 | −2.6 | −0.6 | −1.6 | +1.2 | −0.2 |
| 2021 | −0.5 | +0.1 | +2.3 | −0.1 | −2.8 | −1.3 | −0.5 | −2.0 | −1.8 | +0.1 | +1.7 | +2.3 |
| 2022 | +1.5 | −0.6 | +0.6 | −1.1 | −0.3 | +0.1 | −1.2 | −2.0 | +0.5 | −0.8 | +0.6 | −1.4 |
| 2023 | +0.1 | +2.5 | +3.2 | −2.7 | +0.8 | −0.3 | −0.8 | −0.6 | +1.0 | +4.0 | −1.8 | −2.2 |
| 2024 | +0.8 | −1.8 | +0.9 | +1.3 | +1.8 | +0.7 | +1.9 | +1.3 | −0.1 | −0.3 | +2.3 | +0.9 |
| 2025 | +2.9 | −1.2 | +1.0 | +0.9 | +0.3 | +0.2 | −1.1 | −1.9 | +0.5 | −2.5 | +1.9 | −2.1 |
+1 warmer than usual −1 cooler than usual
Nearby
More lakes nearby
ChinaAbout 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 (Q20160756) · 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.
