Glacial lake · Canada
Lac la Ronge
Lake in Saskatchewan, Canada
- Area
- 1,296km²
- Max depth
- 41m
- Average depth
- 13m
- Elevation
- 360m a.s.l.
- Shoreline
- 1,912km
- Volume
- 16.5km³
Lac la Ronge is a glacial lake in Canada. It covers 1,296 km². On average it is 13 m deep, and 41 m at its deepest point. Its surface lies 360 m above sea level.
Plan your visit
Stay, sail and get there
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The water
How warm is Lac la Ronge?
The water is warmest in August, around 20 °C at the surface, and coldest in January, around 0 °C. It rarely averages 20 °C, but it stays above 17 °C from July to August: brisk, refreshing swimming.
The lake usually freezes over for about 180 days a year, from around 1 November to 29 April.
On the shore, afternoons reach 23 °C on average in July and -15 °C in January. The driest month is February (21 mm of rain), the wettest July (106 mm).
Average surface temperature measured by the Landsat 8 satellite between 2013 and 2021 at the point furthest from the shore (132 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 | — | -15 | -24 | 29 | 8 | 3.0 | 8 |
| February | Ice | — | -13 | -22 | 21 | 6 | 5.8 | 9 |
| March | Ice | — | -6 | -14 | 34 | 8 | 7.9 | 10 |
| April | Ice | — | 5 | -4 | 41 | 8 | 9.0 | 11 |
| May | 4 | 8 | 14 | 4 | 64 | 10 | 8.9 | 10 |
| June | 12 | 16 | 20 | 10 | 94 | 14 | 8.1 | 10 |
| July | 18 | 19 | 23 | 14 | 106 | 15 | 8.3 | 10 |
| August | 20 | 20 | 22 | 12 | 69 | 12 | 7.3 | 10 |
| September | 16 | 18 | 15 | 6 | 61 | 9 | 5.6 | 10 |
| October | 6 | 12 | 5 | -2 | 48 | 9 | 3.3 | 10 |
| November | Ice | — | -6 | -13 | 32 | 7 | 1.8 | 8 |
| December | Ice | — | -14 | -21 | 25 | 7 | 1.8 | 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 9.5 years before flowing out.
- Its catchment drains 15,257 km² of land.
- About 55 m³ of water flow out every second, on average.
- Its shoreline is 15.0 times longer than a circle of the same area: plenty of bays and inlets.
Around the shore
What's around Lac la Ronge
Counted within 1.5 km of the shoreline in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit.
- 1beaches and swimming spots
- 4campsites
Wadin Bay Campground, Nut Point Campground
- —boat hire and water-sport clubs
- 3marinas and slipways
- —ferry piers
- —viewpoints
- 8hotels, B&Bs and chalets
Waterbase Inn, Drifter's Motel, La Ronge Hotel and Suites, Northland Motor Hotel, Riverside Motel and 3 more
- —fishing spots
- 6restaurants and cafés
Towns on the shore
- La Ronge5,671 people
Nearest airport with scheduled flights: La Ronge Airport (YVC), 20 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 | -15.4 | -13.1 | -5.5 | 5.2 | 14.4 | 19.9 | 23.3 | 21.6 | 14.8 | 4.7 | -6.1 | -14.1 |
| 2020 | +1.7 | +2.6 | −1.7 | −5.3 | −1.4 | −2.5 | −1.2 | −0.9 | −1.8 | −3.8 | −2.0 | +3.1 |
| 2021 | +3.8 | −4.8 | +4.5 | −0.9 | −1.6 | +2.0 | +1.9 | −1.1 | +1.0 | +2.6 | +2.2 | −5.7 |
| 2022 | −2.5 | −4.1 | −1.8 | −3.0 | −2.7 | −1.4 | −0.7 | +1.8 | +3.5 | +4.1 | −1.6 | −5.3 |
| 2023 | +2.3 | +0.4 | −3.6 | −1.2 | +5.2 | +4.2 | −1.3 | −0.5 | +4.0 | +1.3 | +2.3 | +8.1 |
| 2024 | −0.6 | +5.2 | −1.1 | +3.5 | −1.2 | −3.9 | +2.2 | +1.4 | +4.5 | +1.8 | +0.5 | +1.2 |
| 2025 | +2.1 | −4.1 | −0.9 | +0.6 | +4.2 | −1.6 | −0.3 | +0.9 | +3.8 | +3.5 | +2.9 | −5.1 |
+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 (Q250257) · 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.
