Lake · Ethiopia
Lake Awasa
One of the Rift Valley Lakes of Ethiopia
- Area
- 86.8km²
- Max depth
- 22m
- Average depth
- 5.1m
- Elevation
- 1,684m a.s.l.
- Shoreline
- 53km
- Volume
- 0.442km³
Lake Awasa is a lake in Ethiopia. It covers 86.8 km². On average it is 5.1 m deep, and 22 m at its deepest point. Its surface lies 1,684 m above sea level.
Plan your visit
Stay, sail and get there
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The water
How warm is Lake Awasa?
The water is warmest in April, around 25 °C at the surface, and coldest in January, around 21 °C. The surface averages 20 °C or more from January to December: comfortable for most swimmers.
It does not normally freeze in winter.
On the shore, afternoons reach 31 °C on average in February and 22 °C in July. The driest month is January (18 mm of rain), the wettest May (203 mm).
Average surface temperature measured by the Landsat 8 satellite between 2013 and 2021 at the point furthest from the shore (99 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 | 21 | 21 | 29 | 12 | 18 | 6 | 10.2 | 8 |
| February | 22 | 23 | 31 | 14 | 35 | 7 | 10.4 | 8 |
| March | 24 | 25 | 30 | 15 | 89 | 15 | 9.8 | 8 |
| April | 25 | 25 | 27 | 15 | 200 | 23 | 8.5 | 7 |
| May | 24 | 24 | 25 | 15 | 203 | 25 | 8.7 | 7 |
| June | 22 | 23 | 23 | 14 | 110 | 25 | 7.7 | 9 |
| July | 22 | 22 | 22 | 14 | 130 | 27 | 5.7 | 10 |
| August | 22 | 23 | 23 | 14 | 168 | 27 | 6.0 | 10 |
| September | 23 | 24 | 24 | 14 | 158 | 26 | 7.0 | 8 |
| October | 24 | 24 | 25 | 14 | 132 | 22 | 8.8 | 7 |
| November | 24 | 24 | 26 | 12 | 80 | 12 | 9.7 | 8 |
| December | 22 | 23 | 27 | 12 | 32 | 6 | 10.3 | 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 17 months before flowing out.
- Its catchment drains 1,458 km² of land.
- About 9.9 m³ of water flow out every second, on average.
Around the shore
What's around Lake Awasa
Counted within 1.5 km of the shoreline in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit.
- —beaches and swimming spots
- 1campsites
Adenium
- 2boat hire and water-sport clubs
- —marinas and slipways
- —ferry piers
- 5viewpoints
Tikur Wuha, Areb Sefer, Fikir Hayk, Piazza, Dato Area
- 48hotels, B&Bs and chalets
Jerusalem Hotel, Oasis Hotel, Wabe Shebelle Hotel #2, Lewi Resort, Chambalala Hotel and 43 more
- —fishing spots
- 23restaurants and cafés
Towns on the shore
- Awasa422,200 people
Nearest airport with scheduled flights: Hawassa International Airport (AWA), 9 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 | 28.7 | 30.7 | 30.2 | 27.3 | 25.3 | 23.1 | 22.4 | 22.7 | 23.6 | 25.1 | 25.8 | 26.8 |
| 2020 | −3.0 | −2.7 | −2.2 | −0.7 | −1.5 | −1.3 | −1.5 | −1.2 | −1.2 | −1.2 | −1.2 | −1.7 |
| 2021 | −3.4 | −3.7 | +0.6 | +0.8 | −0.9 | +2.1 | +0.3 | +0.1 | −0.9 | −1.4 | −0.8 | −1.2 |
| 2022 | −2.8 | −2.0 | +0.5 | ±0.0 | +0.8 | +0.2 | −0.4 | −0.4 | −0.2 | −1.4 | +0.2 | +0.5 |
| 2023 | +0.4 | +1.2 | −3.0 | −1.8 | −1.1 | +0.1 | +0.1 | +0.7 | +0.5 | −0.6 | −2.2 | −1.9 |
| 2024 | −3.0 | −3.5 | −2.7 | −1.8 | −0.5 | +0.6 | −0.5 | −0.7 | −0.2 | −1.7 | −1.7 | −1.7 |
| 2025 | −1.0 | +1.1 | −2.0 | −0.9 | −0.6 | +1.1 | +0.4 | −0.5 | −0.8 | −1.6 | −1.1 | −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 (Q791631) · 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.
