Lake · United Kingdom
Loch Ness
Lake in Highland, Scotland, UK, outflows via Loch Dochfour to the River Ness and Caledonian Canal
- Area
- 51.6km²
- Max depth
- 272m
- Average depth
- 62m
- Elevation
- 15m a.s.l.
- Shoreline
- 79km
- Volume
- 3.2km³
Loch Ness is a lake in United Kingdom. It covers 51.6 km². On average it is 62 m deep, and 272 m at its deepest point. Its surface lies 15 m above sea level.
Plan your visit
Stay, sail and get there
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The water
How warm is Loch Ness?
The water is warmest in August, around 16 °C at the surface, and coldest in February, around 5 °C. Even at its warmest, the surface stays below 17 °C on average: this is cold water.
It does not normally freeze in winter.
On the shore, afternoons reach 17 °C on average in July and 4 °C in January. The driest month is April (56 mm of rain), the wettest August (102 mm).
Average surface temperature measured by the Landsat 8 satellite between 2013 and 2021 at the point furthest from the shore (81 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 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 0 | 72 | 19 | 0.4 | 23 |
| February | 5 | 5 | 4 | 0 | 61 | 17 | 1.7 | 22 |
| March | 5 | 5 | 6 | 0 | 61 | 18 | 3.0 | 22 |
| April | 6 | 6 | 10 | 2 | 56 | 16 | 4.9 | 19 |
| May | 8 | 10 | 12 | 5 | 72 | 18 | 5.9 | 17 |
| June | 12 | 13 | 15 | 8 | 84 | 19 | 4.7 | 16 |
| July | 15 | 16 | 17 | 10 | 95 | 20 | 4.4 | 16 |
| August | 16 | 16 | 16 | 9 | 102 | 20 | 3.8 | 16 |
| September | 14 | 15 | 14 | 8 | 75 | 17 | 3.3 | 19 |
| October | 11 | 13 | 10 | 5 | 96 | 19 | 2.0 | 20 |
| November | 8 | 9 | 6 | 2 | 75 | 19 | 0.9 | 20 |
| December | 6 | 7 | 4 | 0 | 72 | 18 | 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 19 months before flowing out.
- Its catchment drains 1,770 km² of land.
- About 65 m³ of water flow out every second, on average.
- Its shoreline is 3.1 times longer than a circle of the same area: plenty of bays and inlets.
Around the shore
What's around Loch Ness
Counted within 1.5 km of the shoreline in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit.
- 5beaches and swimming spots
Dores, Dores Beach
- 10campsites
Loch Ness Bay Camping, Forest Glen Holiday Park, Loch Ness Highland Resort, Loch Ness Shores, Inver Coille and 5 more
- 1boat hire and water-sport clubs
- 3marinas and slipways
Urquhart Bay Harbour, RNLI
- 2ferry piers
Urquhart Castle
- 24viewpoints
Upper Viewpoint, Lower Viewpoint, Loch Ness South Viewpoint, View point and 20 more
- 67hotels, B&Bs and chalets
Knockie Lodge, Loch Ness Inn, Benleva Hotel, Loch Ness Backpackers Lodge, The Birches and 62 more
- —fishing spots
- 21restaurants and cafés
Towns on the shore
- Drumnadrochit1,130 people
Nearest airport with scheduled flights: Inverness Airport (INV), 33 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.
Photos
Seen by visitors
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 | 3.8 | 4.2 | 6.2 | 9.5 | 12.5 | 15.0 | 16.7 | 16.1 | 13.9 | 10.2 | 6.5 | 4.3 |
| 2020 | +2.1 | +0.1 | +0.1 | +1.0 | +0.8 | +1.2 | −1.6 | +1.1 | +0.1 | −0.7 | +1.4 | ±0.0 |
| 2021 | −2.4 | −0.9 | +1.0 | −1.5 | −1.6 | +1.3 | +2.2 | +1.0 | +2.0 | +0.7 | +1.1 | −0.2 |
| 2022 | +2.1 | +1.0 | +2.2 | +0.3 | +0.4 | +1.3 | +0.9 | +1.3 | +0.8 | +1.3 | +2.0 | −1.4 |
| 2023 | +0.5 | +2.6 | −0.7 | +0.7 | +1.6 | +4.5 | ±0.0 | +0.7 | +2.0 | −0.3 | −0.6 | −0.1 |
| 2024 | −0.1 | +1.3 | +1.1 | −0.4 | +4.0 | −0.7 | −0.5 | ±0.0 | +0.2 | +0.8 | +0.5 | +2.0 |
| 2025 | −0.1 | +0.8 | +2.5 | +2.8 | +2.3 | +1.2 | +2.4 | +2.0 | +0.4 | +0.8 | +0.2 | +1.2 |
+1 warmer than usual −1 cooler than usual
Nearby
More lakes nearby
United Kingdom1.4 km² · 33 km away17°maxLoch LochyUnited Kingdom16.2 km² · 54 km away16°maxLoch ArkaigUnited Kingdom15.1 km² · 56 km away17°maxLoch ErichtUnited Kingdom21.9 km² · 62 km away13°maxLoch RannochUnited Kingdom18.7 km² · 71 km away15°maxLoch MareeUnited Kingdom25.2 km² · 79 km away16°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 (Q49650) · 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.
