Reservoir · Egypt · Sudan
Lake Nasser
Reservoir in Southern Egypt and northern Sudan
- Area
- 5,385km²
- Max depth
- 25m
- Average depth
- 30m
- Elevation
- 179m a.s.l.
- Shoreline
- 7,201km
- Volume
- 162km³
Lake Nasser is a reservoir in Egypt. It covers 5,385 km². On average it is 30 m deep, and 25 m at its deepest point. Its surface lies 179 m above sea level.
Plan your visit
Stay, sail and get there
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The water
How warm is Lake Nasser?
The water is warmest in August, around 29 °C at the surface, and coldest in February, around 18 °C. The surface averages 20 °C or more from April to December: comfortable for most swimmers.
It does not normally freeze in winter.
On the shore, afternoons reach 42 °C on average in August and 23 °C in January. The driest month is February (0 mm of rain), the wettest May (0 mm).
Average surface temperature measured by the Landsat 8 satellite between 2013 and 2021 at the point furthest from the shore (157 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 | 18 | 19 | 23 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 9.7 | 15 |
| February | 18 | 18 | 26 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 10.3 | 16 |
| March | 20 | 21 | 30 | 14 | 0 | 0 | 11.2 | 16 |
| April | 22 | 24 | 35 | 18 | 0 | 0 | 11.8 | 16 |
| May | 26 | 27 | 39 | 23 | 0 | 0 | 12.2 | 17 |
| June | 28 | 29 | 41 | 25 | 0 | 0 | 12.8 | 18 |
| July | 29 | 29 | 41 | 26 | 0 | 0 | 12.4 | 17 |
| August | 29 | 29 | 42 | 27 | 0 | 0 | 11.7 | 18 |
| September | 29 | 29 | 40 | 24 | 0 | 0 | 11.1 | 18 |
| October | 27 | 28 | 36 | 21 | 0 | 0 | 10.2 | 16 |
| November | 24 | 26 | 29 | 15 | 0 | 0 | 9.9 | 15 |
| December | 21 | 22 | 24 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 9.5 | 15 |
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 23 months before flowing out.
- Its catchment drains 2,764,126 km² of land.
- About 2,670 m³ of water flow out every second, on average.
- Its shoreline is 27.7 times longer than a circle of the same area: plenty of bays and inlets.
Around the shore
What's around Lake Nasser
Counted within 1.5 km of the shoreline in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit.
Towns on the shore
- Wadi Halfa15,725 people
- Abu Simbel5,000 people
Nearest airport with scheduled flights: Aswan International Airport (ASW), 91 km in a straight line.
Car hire at ASW airport (Aswan)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 | 22.6 | 25.7 | 30.4 | 35.2 | 39.1 | 41.2 | 41.3 | 41.7 | 39.7 | 35.7 | 28.9 | 24.1 |
| 2020 | −2.6 | −2.1 | +0.1 | −1.4 | −0.3 | −0.1 | ±0.0 | −0.1 | +2.4 | +2.1 | −1.8 | +2.0 |
| 2021 | +1.7 | −0.6 | +0.2 | +0.1 | +0.9 | +0.5 | +0.9 | +0.7 | −0.2 | +0.6 | +1.9 | −0.8 |
| 2022 | −2.6 | −2.5 | −2.3 | +3.1 | +0.2 | −0.2 | −0.5 | +0.5 | +1.0 | −0.9 | −0.8 | +1.0 |
| 2023 | +0.8 | −2.2 | −0.1 | −0.5 | −0.4 | +1.2 | +1.0 | +1.7 | +1.8 | +1.7 | +2.6 | +2.1 |
| 2024 | +0.5 | −1.1 | +0.8 | +0.8 | ±0.0 | +2.8 | +1.5 | +0.9 | +0.8 | −0.5 | −1.4 | −0.3 |
| 2025 | +2.8 | −1.6 | +0.2 | +0.9 | −0.2 | −1.3 | +0.6 | +0.9 | −0.5 | +0.3 | +2.4 | +0.1 |
+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 (Q182796) · 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.
