Reservoir · Zimbabwe
Lake Chivero
Lake in Zimbabwe
- Area
- 22.8km²
- Average depth
- 13m
- Elevation
- 1,366m a.s.l.
- Shoreline
- 53km
- Volume
- 0.300km³
Lake Chivero is a reservoir in Zimbabwe. It covers 22.8 km². On average it is 13 m deep. Its surface lies 1,366 m above sea level.
Plan your visit
Stay, sail and get there
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The water
How warm is Lake Chivero?
The water is warmest in December, around 25 °C at the surface, and coldest in July, around 17 °C. The surface averages 20 °C or more from September to May: comfortable for most swimmers.
It does not normally freeze in winter.
On the shore, afternoons reach 32 °C on average in October and 22 °C in July. The driest month is August (0 mm of rain), the wettest December (185 mm).
Average surface temperature measured by the Landsat 8 satellite between 2013 and 2021 at the point furthest from the shore (111 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 | 28 | 16 | 180 | 23 | 7.3 | 12 |
| February | 25 | 25 | 28 | 16 | 142 | 18 | 7.7 | 12 |
| March | 24 | 24 | 27 | 15 | 94 | 15 | 7.9 | 12 |
| April | 22 | 23 | 27 | 13 | 30 | 6 | 8.8 | 13 |
| May | 20 | 22 | 25 | 10 | 5 | 1 | 9.6 | 12 |
| June | 18 | 19 | 23 | 7 | 2 | 0 | 9.2 | 13 |
| July | 17 | 18 | 22 | 7 | 2 | 0 | 9.4 | 14 |
| August | 18 | 19 | 26 | 9 | 0 | 0 | 10.3 | 15 |
| September | 20 | 22 | 30 | 12 | 4 | 1 | 10.4 | 17 |
| October | 23 | 24 | 32 | 16 | 23 | 6 | 9.8 | 18 |
| November | 24 | 25 | 31 | 17 | 91 | 15 | 8.2 | 15 |
| December | 25 | 25 | 28 | 17 | 185 | 22 | 7.3 | 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 14 months before flowing out.
- Its catchment drains 2,254 km² of land.
- About 8.1 m³ of water flow out every second, on average.
- Its shoreline is 3.2 times longer than a circle of the same area: plenty of bays and inlets.
Around the shore
What's around Lake Chivero
Counted within 1.5 km of the shoreline in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit.
- —beaches and swimming spots
- 5campsites
Sunshine Motor Boating, Mazowe Sailing Club, Hunyani Hills, Kuimba Shiri Bird Park, Kamba Caravan Park
- —boat hire and water-sport clubs
- —marinas and slipways
- —ferry piers
- —viewpoints
- 2hotels, B&Bs and chalets
Harare Safari Lodge, Batsirai Marira
- —fishing spots
- —restaurants and cafés
Nearest airport with scheduled flights: Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport (HRE), 31 km in a straight line.
Car hire at HRE airport (Harare)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 | 27.8 | 27.6 | 27.4 | 26.7 | 24.9 | 22.6 | 22.5 | 26.3 | 30.2 | 32.2 | 30.9 | 28.2 |
| 2020 | +1.3 | +0.2 | +2.9 | +2.6 | +1.1 | ±0.0 | −0.3 | +0.9 | −0.2 | −0.4 | +1.6 | −2.0 |
| 2021 | −2.3 | −2.6 | −2.4 | −2.5 | −2.7 | −1.8 | −1.9 | −1.6 | −1.1 | −0.9 | +0.7 | +1.4 |
| 2022 | −2.8 | −0.5 | −0.4 | −2.4 | −2.0 | −2.8 | −1.6 | −0.8 | −1.3 | −0.1 | −3.5 | +0.8 |
| 2023 | −1.9 | −2.0 | +0.3 | +2.2 | +2.0 | +2.9 | +0.1 | −0.5 | +1.4 | ±0.0 | +2.7 | +1.9 |
| 2024 | −0.3 | +5.6 | +4.3 | +2.1 | +2.0 | +0.9 | +4.2 | +2.0 | +1.1 | −1.7 | +0.1 | +3.6 |
| 2025 | −1.1 | +0.5 | +0.7 | +0.6 | −0.1 | +1.0 | ±0.0 | −0.1 | +1.3 | +0.4 | −2.7 | −1.4 |
+1 warmer than usual −1 cooler than usual
Mozambique
ZambiaAbout 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 (Q4864496) · 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.
