Lake · Tanzania
Lake Babati
Body of water
- Area
- 14.5km²
- Average depth
- 4.7m
- Elevation
- 1,347m a.s.l.
- Shoreline
- 36km
- Volume
- 0.068km³
Lake Babati is a lake in Tanzania. It covers 14.5 km². On average it is 4.7 m deep. Its surface lies 1,347 m above sea level.
Plan your visit
Stay, sail and get there
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The water
How warm is Lake Babati?
The water is warmest in February, around 25 °C at the surface, and coldest in July, around 20 °C. The surface averages 20 °C or more from August to June: comfortable for most swimmers.
It does not normally freeze in winter.
On the shore, afternoons reach 28 °C on average in October and 25 °C in July. The driest month is July (2 mm of rain), the wettest January (128 mm).
Average surface temperature measured by the Landsat 8 satellite between 2013 and 2021 at the point furthest from the shore (96 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 | 25 | 25 | 26 | 15 | 128 | 16 | 7.9 | 10 |
| February | 25 | 25 | 27 | 15 | 74 | 14 | 8.5 | 11 |
| March | 25 | 25 | 26 | 15 | 115 | 17 | 8.0 | 11 |
| April | 24 | 24 | 25 | 15 | 120 | 21 | 7.2 | 13 |
| May | 22 | 23 | 25 | 13 | 45 | 12 | 7.0 | 14 |
| June | 21 | 21 | 25 | 12 | 5 | 2 | 8.1 | 13 |
| July | 20 | 20 | 25 | 10 | 2 | 0 | 8.7 | 13 |
| August | 20 | 21 | 26 | 12 | 5 | 1 | 8.8 | 15 |
| September | 22 | 23 | 28 | 13 | 7 | 1 | 9.5 | 17 |
| October | 24 | 24 | 28 | 14 | 29 | 4 | 9.2 | 18 |
| November | 25 | 25 | 28 | 15 | 75 | 12 | 8.5 | 16 |
| December | 25 | 25 | 27 | 16 | 105 | 17 | 7.9 | 13 |
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 4.9 years before flowing out.
- Its catchment drains 390 km² of land.
- About 0.4 m³ of water flow out every second, on average.
- Its shoreline is 2.7 times longer than a circle of the same area: plenty of bays and inlets.
Around the shore
What's around Lake Babati
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
- 1viewpoints
Singida road
- 26hotels, B&Bs and chalets
Motel Paa Paa, Winners Hotel, Whiterose Hotel, Capital lodge, Pole lodge and 21 more
- —fishing spots
- 16restaurants and cafés
Towns on the shore
- Babati67,445 people
Nearest airport with scheduled flights: Arusha Airport (ARK), 144 km in a straight line.
Car hire at JRO airport (Arusha)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 | 26.5 | 26.9 | 26.0 | 25.0 | 24.8 | 24.7 | 24.6 | 25.8 | 27.7 | 28.5 | 27.7 | 26.8 |
| 2020 | −1.7 | −1.8 | −2.4 | −2.1 | −1.8 | −2.1 | −1.8 | −0.7 | −1.1 | −0.1 | −1.7 | −1.1 |
| 2021 | −0.5 | −1.6 | +0.2 | −0.6 | −0.4 | −0.3 | −0.8 | −0.1 | −0.5 | +0.8 | +2.5 | −0.1 |
| 2022 | +0.2 | −3.7 | +1.9 | +1.9 | +1.5 | −0.5 | −1.1 | −1.1 | −1.7 | ±0.0 | +0.4 | +0.7 |
| 2023 | +0.4 | +1.6 | +2.5 | +1.3 | +1.4 | +0.7 | +1.2 | −1.6 | −0.2 | +0.1 | −2.5 | −0.9 |
| 2024 | −2.4 | −0.9 | −0.9 | −1.1 | +0.1 | ±0.0 | +1.0 | +0.3 | +0.7 | +0.7 | +1.6 | −0.6 |
| 2025 | +0.9 | +2.5 | +0.5 | +0.5 | +0.4 | +0.5 | −1.0 | −0.7 | +0.6 | +0.5 | +2.1 | +1.7 |
+1 warmer than usual −1 cooler than usual
KenyaAbout 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 (Q3625294) · 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.
