Lake · Switzerland
Lake Sempach
Lake in Switzerland
- Area
- 13.8km²
- Max depth
- 87m
- Average depth
- 8.2m
- Elevation
- 500m a.s.l.
- Shoreline
- 18km
- Volume
- 0.113km³
Lake Sempach is a lake in Switzerland. It covers 13.8 km². On average it is 8.2 m deep, and 87 m at its deepest point. Its surface lies 500 m above sea level.
Plan your visit
Stay, sail and get there
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The water
How warm is Lake Sempach?
The water is warmest in July, around 25 °C at the surface, and coldest in January, around 3 °C. The surface averages 20 °C or more from June to September: comfortable for most swimmers.
It does not normally freeze in winter.
On the shore, afternoons reach 21 °C on average in July and 1 °C in January. The driest month is February (75 mm of rain), the wettest August (158 mm).
Average surface temperature measured by the Landsat 8 satellite between 2013 and 2021 at the point furthest from the shore (120 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 | 3 | 3 | 1 | -5 | 94 | 13 | 2.5 | 10 |
| February | 3 | 4 | 2 | -5 | 75 | 12 | 3.8 | 10 |
| March | 6 | 8 | 7 | -2 | 96 | 14 | 5.3 | 10 |
| April | 11 | 13 | 12 | 3 | 98 | 15 | 6.5 | 9 |
| May | 16 | 19 | 16 | 7 | 150 | 18 | 6.7 | 9 |
| June | 22 | 24 | 20 | 11 | 146 | 18 | 8.0 | 9 |
| July | 25 | 25 | 21 | 13 | 152 | 18 | 8.1 | 9 |
| August | 24 | 25 | 21 | 13 | 158 | 17 | 7.3 | 8 |
| September | 20 | 22 | 17 | 8 | 101 | 14 | 6.0 | 8 |
| October | 15 | 17 | 13 | 4 | 100 | 13 | 4.2 | 9 |
| November | 9 | 12 | 7 | 0 | 93 | 14 | 2.4 | 9 |
| December | 5 | 7 | 2 | -4 | 100 | 14 | 2.0 | 10 |
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 16 months before flowing out.
- Its catchment drains 88 km² of land.
- About 2.6 m³ of water flow out every second, on average.
Around the shore
What's around Lake Sempach
Counted within 1.5 km of the shoreline in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit.
- 4beaches and swimming spots
Strandbad Sursee
- 3campsites
Campingplatz Seeland TCS, TCS Camping Sempach, Campingplatz St. Margrethen
- 4boat hire and water-sport clubs
Bootsverleih, Bootsvermietung der Korporation Sursee, Seeclub Sempach, Yacht-Club Sempachersee
- 5marinas and slipways
- —ferry piers
- 4viewpoints
- 14hotels, B&Bs and chalets
Seminarhotel Sempachersee, Brauerei, Hotel Sursee, Hirschen, Krone and 9 more
- —fishing spots
- 55restaurants and cafés
Towns on the shore
- Sursee9,953 people
- Neuenkirch5,963 people
- Sempach3,754 people
- Oberkirch3,228 people
- Nottwil2,911 people
- Schenkon2,616 people
- Eich1,627 people
Nearest airport with scheduled flights: Zürich Airport (ZRH), 46 km in a straight line.
Car hire at ZRH airport (Zurich)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 | 1.3 | 2.3 | 6.7 | 11.7 | 15.6 | 19.7 | 21.3 | 20.8 | 16.9 | 13.0 | 6.6 | 2.2 |
| 2020 | +2.9 | +4.2 | +0.6 | +3.3 | +0.8 | −1.7 | +0.5 | +0.7 | +1.3 | −1.9 | +2.6 | −0.4 |
| 2021 | −1.8 | +2.8 | +0.2 | −2.1 | −2.8 | +1.4 | −1.1 | −1.5 | +1.7 | −0.4 | −1.2 | +0.6 |
| 2022 | +0.9 | +2.0 | +2.7 | −0.3 | +2.3 | +3.1 | +2.2 | +2.2 | −0.1 | +4.4 | +1.8 | +1.1 |
| 2023 | +0.9 | +3.0 | +2.1 | −1.8 | −0.1 | +2.0 | +1.8 | +1.8 | +4.7 | +3.5 | −0.3 | +1.7 |
| 2024 | +1.7 | +5.4 | +2.2 | −0.2 | −0.2 | ±0.0 | +1.4 | +2.7 | −0.4 | +1.6 | +1.4 | +1.0 |
| 2025 | +1.5 | +2.5 | +2.0 | +2.1 | −0.1 | +3.6 | −0.7 | +1.6 | +0.4 | −1.1 | +0.3 | +2.4 |
+1 warmer than usual −1 cooler than usual
Nearby
More lakes nearby
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 (Q14459) · 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.
