Glacial lake · Iceland
Lagarfljót
Lake in Iceland
- Area
- 54.1km²
- Max depth
- 112m
- Average depth
- 18m
- Elevation
- 21m a.s.l.
- Shoreline
- 67km
- Volume
- 1.0km³
Lagarfljót is a glacial lake in Iceland. It covers 54.1 km². On average it is 18 m deep, and 112 m at its deepest point. Its surface lies 21 m above sea level.
Plan your visit
Stay, sail and get there
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The water
How warm is Lagarfljót?
The water is warmest in August, around 9 °C at the surface, and coldest in February, 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 71 days a year, from around 12 February to 23 April.
On the shore, afternoons reach 10 °C on average in July and -3 °C in January. The driest month is June (78 mm of rain), the wettest October (141 mm).
Average surface temperature measured by the Landsat 8 satellite between 2013 and 2021 at the point furthest from the shore (89 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 | 0 | 1 | -3 | -8 | 126 | 21 | 0.4 | 24 |
| February | Ice | — | -2 | -8 | 107 | 18 | 1.1 | 23 |
| March | Ice | — | -2 | -8 | 106 | 20 | 3.8 | 22 |
| April | Ice | — | 0 | -5 | 93 | 18 | 6.4 | 20 |
| May | 2 | 3 | 4 | -2 | 89 | 17 | 7.3 | 18 |
| June | 6 | 7 | 9 | 2 | 78 | 18 | 7.6 | 15 |
| July | 9 | 10 | 10 | 4 | 109 | 20 | 5.9 | 14 |
| August | 9 | 10 | 9 | 4 | 108 | 20 | 5.0 | 15 |
| September | 7 | 9 | 6 | 1 | 125 | 20 | 3.5 | 18 |
| October | 5 | 6 | 2 | -3 | 141 | 21 | 1.6 | 20 |
| November | 3 | 4 | -2 | -6 | 133 | 20 | 0.6 | 21 |
| December | 1 | 2 | -3 | -8 | 125 | 20 | 0.4 | 23 |
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 4 months before flowing out.
- Its catchment drains 2,403 km² of land.
- About 88 m³ of water flow out every second, on average.
- Its shoreline is 2.6 times longer than a circle of the same area: plenty of bays and inlets.
Around the shore
What's around Lagarfljót
Counted within 1.5 km of the shoreline in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit.
- 3beaches and swimming spots
- 5campsites
Camping Mjóanes, Höfðavík, Tjaldsvæði Skipalæk, Camp Egilsstaðir, Atlavík
- —boat hire and water-sport clubs
- —marinas and slipways
- 1ferry piers
Atlavik
- 12viewpoints
- 27hotels, B&Bs and chalets
Valaskjálf, Gistihúsið, Berjaya Hotel Hérað, Lyngás, Ormurinn and 22 more
- —fishing spots
- 11restaurants and cafés
Towns on the shore
- Egilsstaðir2,572 people
Nearest airport with scheduled flights: Egilsstaðir Airport (EGS), 24 km in a straight line.
Car hire at EGS airport (Egilsstaðir)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 | -2.7 | -2.4 | -1.7 | 0.4 | 3.5 | 8.7 | 10.5 | 9.3 | 6.2 | 1.7 | -1.5 | -2.7 |
| 2020 | +0.2 | −0.8 | −0.3 | −0.4 | ±0.0 | +0.8 | −1.4 | +0.9 | −0.7 | +0.1 | +0.5 | −1.0 |
| 2021 | −2.3 | +0.5 | +1.0 | −0.9 | −3.3 | −1.1 | +3.8 | +3.3 | +1.0 | −0.7 | −0.7 | −0.9 |
| 2022 | +0.5 | −2.1 | +2.1 | −0.1 | +0.3 | +0.1 | −0.8 | −0.8 | +1.4 | −0.3 | +2.5 | −4.6 |
| 2023 | −1.3 | +0.8 | −4.1 | +0.2 | +2.8 | +3.4 | −1.7 | +1.2 | −0.4 | −0.7 | +0.6 | −2.8 |
| 2024 | −1.6 | −1.9 | −0.3 | −1.9 | +1.8 | −1.3 | +0.5 | −1.5 | −2.0 | −1.7 | +0.1 | −0.8 |
| 2025 | −1.8 | +2.3 | +1.1 | +1.8 | +6.2 | −1.8 | +2.9 | +1.7 | +0.9 | −0.5 | −2.5 | +1.9 |
+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 (Q1344692) · 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.
