Lake · United Kingdom
Loch Arkaig
Lake in Highland, Scotland, UK, outflows east to River Arkaig
- Area
- 15.1km²
- Max depth
- 109m
- Average depth
- 31m
- Elevation
- 42m a.s.l.
- Shoreline
- 41km
- Volume
- 0.464km³
Loch Arkaig is a lake in United Kingdom. It covers 15.1 km². On average it is 31 m deep, and 109 m at its deepest point. Its surface lies 42 m above sea level.
Plan your visit
Stay, sail and get there
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The water
How warm is Loch Arkaig?
The water is warmest in July, around 17 °C at the surface, and coldest in February, around 4 °C. It rarely averages 20 °C, but it stays above 17 °C in July: brisk, refreshing swimming.
It does not normally freeze in winter.
On the shore, afternoons reach 15 °C on average in July and 3 °C in January. The driest month is April (100 mm of rain), the wettest January (191 mm).
Average surface temperature measured by the Landsat 8 satellite between 2013 and 2021 at the point furthest from the shore (54 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 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 0 | 191 | 24 | 0.4 | 23 |
| February | 4 | 4 | 3 | -1 | 140 | 21 | 1.7 | 21 |
| March | 4 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 134 | 22 | 3.0 | 21 |
| April | 6 | 8 | 8 | 2 | 100 | 20 | 4.9 | 19 |
| May | 10 | 12 | 11 | 5 | 125 | 20 | 5.9 | 17 |
| June | 15 | 16 | 14 | 8 | 131 | 22 | 4.6 | 16 |
| July | 17 | 18 | 15 | 9 | 148 | 24 | 4.4 | 16 |
| August | 17 | 18 | 15 | 9 | 166 | 24 | 3.8 | 16 |
| September | 14 | 15 | 12 | 7 | 152 | 21 | 3.3 | 18 |
| October | 9 | 11 | 9 | 5 | 177 | 23 | 2.0 | 20 |
| November | 6 | 8 | 6 | 2 | 167 | 23 | 0.9 | 20 |
| December | 5 | 5 | 4 | 0 | 184 | 23 | 0.2 | 21 |
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 12 months before flowing out.
- Its catchment drains 245 km² of land.
- About 14 m³ of water flow out every second, on average.
- Its shoreline is 3.0 times longer than a circle of the same area: plenty of bays and inlets.
Around the shore
What's around Loch Arkaig
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
- 1marinas and slipways
- —ferry piers
- —viewpoints
- —hotels, B&Bs and chalets
- —fishing spots
- —restaurants and cafés
Nearest airport with scheduled flights: Inverness Airport (INV), 89 km in a straight line.
Car hire at INV airport (Inverness)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 | 3.1 | 3.2 | 4.9 | 8.2 | 11.4 | 13.9 | 15.3 | 14.7 | 12.5 | 9.1 | 5.8 | 3.8 |
| 2020 | +2.0 | +0.2 | ±0.0 | +1.1 | +0.6 | +1.5 | −2.1 | +1.6 | ±0.0 | −0.6 | +1.6 | ±0.0 |
| 2021 | −2.5 | −1.1 | +1.1 | −1.3 | −1.5 | +1.0 | +3.1 | +1.7 | +2.2 | +0.9 | +1.1 | −0.3 |
| 2022 | +2.0 | +1.0 | +2.2 | +0.7 | −0.1 | +0.5 | +0.5 | +1.4 | +1.0 | +1.3 | +1.9 | −1.6 |
| 2023 | +0.6 | +2.6 | −0.4 | +0.7 | +1.4 | +4.5 | −0.1 | +0.7 | +2.0 | −0.1 | −0.6 | +0.1 |
| 2024 | ±0.0 | +1.4 | +1.3 | ±0.0 | +3.9 | −1.1 | −0.6 | −0.5 | +0.5 | +0.9 | +0.6 | +1.9 |
| 2025 | −0.2 | +0.7 | +2.4 | +2.8 | +2.7 | +0.5 | +1.8 | +2.0 | ±0.0 | +0.7 | +0.1 | +1.2 |
+1 warmer than usual −1 cooler than usual
Nearby
More lakes nearby
United Kingdom16.2 km² · 6 km away16°maxLoch NessUnited Kingdom51.6 km² · 56 km away16°maxLoch OichUnited Kingdom1.4 km² · 23 km away17°maxLoch MorarUnited Kingdom25.4 km² · 42 km away15°maxLoch ShielUnited Kingdom18.4 km² · 36 km away16°maxLoch ErichtUnited Kingdom21.9 km² · 42 km away13°maxAbout 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 (Q1867229) · 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.
