Lake · United States
Kenai Lake
Lake in Kenai Peninsula Borough, Alaska, United States of America
- Area
- 56.2km²
- Average depth
- 75m
- Elevation
- 124m a.s.l.
- Shoreline
- 90km
- Volume
- 4.2km³
Kenai Lake is a lake in United States. It covers 56.2 km². On average it is 75 m deep. Its surface lies 124 m above sea level.
Plan your visit
Stay, sail and get there
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The water
How warm is Kenai Lake?
The water is warmest in July, around 13 °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 132 days a year, from around 10 December to 20 April.
On the shore, afternoons reach 14 °C on average in July and -7 °C in January. The driest month is June (106 mm of rain), the wettest September (210 mm).
Average surface temperature measured by the Landsat 8 satellite between 2013 and 2021 at the point furthest from the shore (94 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 | — | -7 | -12 | 158 | 19 | 0.9 | 12 |
| February | Ice | — | -5 | -11 | 140 | 18 | 2.2 | 12 |
| March | Ice | — | -4 | -11 | 114 | 17 | 5.1 | 10 |
| April | Ice | — | 1 | -5 | 124 | 18 | 6.0 | 10 |
| May | 5 | 8 | 4 | 0 | 112 | 17 | 6.8 | 8 |
| June | 11 | 13 | 10 | 5 | 106 | 18 | 6.8 | 8 |
| July | 13 | 14 | 14 | 8 | 132 | 20 | 6.4 | 8 |
| August | 13 | 14 | 13 | 7 | 173 | 20 | 5.1 | 8 |
| September | 10 | 11 | 8 | 3 | 210 | 20 | 3.9 | 10 |
| October | 6 | 8 | 2 | -2 | 198 | 20 | 2.1 | 10 |
| November | 3 | 4 | -5 | -10 | 167 | 19 | 1.1 | 11 |
| December | Ice | — | -6 | -11 | 189 | 22 | 0.4 | 12 |
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 19 months before flowing out.
- Its catchment drains 1,641 km² of land.
- About 83 m³ of water flow out every second, on average.
- Its shoreline is 3.4 times longer than a circle of the same area: plenty of bays and inlets.
Around the shore
What's around Kenai Lake
Counted within 1.5 km of the shoreline in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit.
- —beaches and swimming spots
- 7campsites
Quartz Creek Campground, Ptarmigan Creek Campground, Trail River Campground, Primrose Campground, Grizzly Ridge Cabins & RV Sites and 2 more
- —boat hire and water-sport clubs
- 5marinas and slipways
Primrose Boat Launch
- —ferry piers
- —viewpoints
- 9hotels, B&Bs and chalets
Alpine Inn Motel, Drifters Lodge, Drifter's Lodge, Grizzly Ridge Cabins, The Hutch Bed & Breakfast and 4 more
- —fishing spots
- 6restaurants and cafés
Nearest airport with scheduled flights: Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport (ANC), 88 km in a straight line.
Car hire at ANC airport (Anchorage)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 | -7.2 | -5.1 | -3.8 | 0.6 | 4.5 | 10.4 | 14.0 | 13.0 | 8.4 | 1.9 | -4.7 | -6.0 |
| 2020 | −7.9 | −1.4 | −1.0 | −0.2 | +2.0 | +0.7 | +0.9 | ±0.0 | +0.2 | −0.6 | −0.3 | +1.8 |
| 2021 | +2.8 | −2.9 | −2.5 | −0.6 | −0.2 | +0.3 | −0.6 | +0.2 | −2.3 | −1.2 | −6.3 | −1.9 |
| 2022 | +0.2 | +2.5 | +2.3 | −0.2 | +0.8 | +3.4 | −0.5 | −1.4 | ±0.0 | −0.5 | +0.5 | −0.7 |
| 2023 | +4.2 | −0.9 | +0.3 | −1.6 | −2.0 | −2.5 | −0.1 | +0.8 | −0.9 | −0.2 | +1.9 | −1.1 |
| 2024 | −2.3 | +0.1 | +1.3 | +0.1 | −1.7 | +0.8 | −1.0 | −0.9 | −0.2 | −0.8 | −1.0 | +4.3 |
| 2025 | +3.6 | +1.8 | +3.3 | +0.5 | −1.3 | −2.0 | −0.7 | +0.5 | +0.5 | +1.9 | +1.6 | −7.3 |
+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 (Q200967) · 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.
