Salt lake · Senegal
Lake Retba
Pink lake in Senegal
- Area
- 2.9km²
- Max depth
- 3m
- Average depth
- 3.0m
- Elevation
- -5m a.s.l.
- Shoreline
- 9.1km
- Volume
- 0.009km³
Lake Retba is a salt lake in Senegal. It covers 2.9 km². On average it is 3.0 m deep, and 3 m at its deepest point. Its surface lies 5 m below sea level.
Plan your visit
Stay, sail and get there
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The water
How warm is Lake Retba?
The water is warmest in September, around 30 °C at the surface, and coldest in January, around 24 °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 29 °C on average in October and 22 °C in April. The driest month is May (3 mm of rain), the wettest August (162 mm).
Average surface temperature measured by the Landsat 8 satellite between 2013 and 2021 at the point furthest from the shore (149 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 | 24 | 25 | 24 | 20 | 12 | 2 | 8.3 | 23 |
| February | 24 | 25 | 22 | 19 | 15 | 2 | 8.6 | 24 |
| March | 26 | 27 | 22 | 19 | 6 | 2 | 9.8 | 22 |
| April | 28 | 28 | 22 | 20 | 10 | 1 | 10.1 | 23 |
| May | 29 | 29 | 23 | 21 | 3 | 1 | 9.8 | 20 |
| June | 29 | 29 | 26 | 24 | 11 | 2 | 8.6 | 17 |
| July | 29 | 30 | 27 | 26 | 72 | 11 | 7.7 | 16 |
| August | 30 | 30 | 28 | 27 | 162 | 22 | 7.4 | 15 |
| September | 30 | 30 | 28 | 27 | 146 | 23 | 7.3 | 14 |
| October | 30 | 30 | 29 | 27 | 47 | 10 | 8.3 | 15 |
| November | 28 | 29 | 28 | 25 | 16 | 2 | 8.2 | 20 |
| December | 26 | 27 | 26 | 22 | 14 | 4 | 8.0 | 22 |
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
- Its catchment drains 74 km² of land.
Around the shore
What's around Lake Retba
Counted within 1.5 km of the shoreline in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit.
- 2beaches and swimming spots
- 2campsites
Le Calao du Lac Rose, A la ficelle
- —boat hire and water-sport clubs
- —marinas and slipways
- —ferry piers
- —viewpoints
- 26hotels, B&Bs and chalets
Chez Salim, La ficelle, Le Calao du Lac Rose, Camping Le Nomade, Le Palal and 21 more
- —fishing spots
- 7restaurants and cafés
Nearest airport with scheduled flights: Blaise Diagne International Airport (DSS), 26 km in a straight line.
Car hire at DSS airport (Dakar)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 | 23.7 | 22.3 | 22.1 | 22.0 | 23.3 | 25.6 | 27.2 | 27.9 | 28.5 | 29.0 | 27.9 | 25.8 |
| 2020 | +0.8 | +3.4 | +1.6 | −0.1 | −0.5 | +0.1 | +0.2 | +0.3 | +0.1 | +0.1 | +0.6 | −0.9 |
| 2021 | −1.1 | −0.8 | −0.8 | −0.4 | −1.1 | −0.3 | −0.3 | +0.1 | +0.3 | ±0.0 | −0.1 | +0.5 |
| 2022 | +2.1 | +1.9 | −1.6 | −0.6 | +0.5 | +0.4 | +0.2 | +0.3 | ±0.0 | ±0.0 | +0.9 | +1.0 |
| 2023 | +1.0 | −1.3 | +1.1 | +1.5 | +2.0 | +1.3 | +1.3 | +0.7 | +0.7 | +0.4 | +0.5 | +0.6 |
| 2024 | +2.3 | +4.2 | −0.1 | +2.1 | +1.6 | +0.2 | +0.4 | +0.6 | +0.1 | −0.1 | +0.9 | +0.8 |
| 2025 | +0.2 | −0.3 | −1.4 | −0.1 | −0.1 | +0.4 | +0.2 | +0.3 | +0.5 | +0.5 | +0.6 | −2.6 |
+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 (Q1522557) · 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.
