Lake · Ireland
Lough Gill
Freshwater lake in County Sligo and partly in County Leitrim
- Area
- 13.3km²
- Average depth
- 16m
- Elevation
- 1m a.s.l.
- Shoreline
- 42km
- Volume
- 0.218km³
Lough Gill is a lake in Ireland. It covers 13.3 km². On average it is 16 m deep. Its surface lies 1 m above sea level.
Plan your visit
Stay, sail and get there
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The water
How warm is Lough Gill?
The water is warmest in July, around 19 °C at the surface, and coldest in February, around 4 °C. It rarely averages 20 °C, but it stays above 17 °C from June to August: brisk, refreshing swimming.
It does not normally freeze in winter.
On the shore, afternoons reach 18 °C on average in July and 6 °C in January. The driest month is April (75 mm of rain), the wettest November (124 mm).
Average surface temperature measured by the Landsat 8 satellite between 2013 and 2021 at the point furthest from the shore (65 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 | 6 | 6 | 2 | 118 | 20 | 0.9 | 22 |
| February | 4 | 4 | 7 | 2 | 93 | 17 | 2.3 | 21 |
| March | 5 | 6 | 9 | 2 | 90 | 18 | 3.8 | 21 |
| April | 9 | 11 | 12 | 4 | 75 | 16 | 6.0 | 18 |
| May | 14 | 16 | 14 | 7 | 94 | 17 | 7.0 | 18 |
| June | 18 | 19 | 17 | 10 | 102 | 18 | 6.2 | 17 |
| July | 19 | 20 | 18 | 11 | 111 | 21 | 5.1 | 16 |
| August | 18 | 19 | 18 | 11 | 119 | 21 | 4.8 | 17 |
| September | 15 | 17 | 16 | 9 | 98 | 18 | 3.9 | 18 |
| October | 12 | 14 | 12 | 7 | 117 | 19 | 2.6 | 20 |
| November | 9 | 10 | 9 | 4 | 124 | 20 | 1.1 | 20 |
| December | 7 | 8 | 7 | 3 | 122 | 20 | 0.6 | 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 7 months before flowing out.
- Its catchment drains 349 km² of land.
- About 12 m³ of water flow out every second, on average.
- Its shoreline is 3.2 times longer than a circle of the same area: plenty of bays and inlets.
Around the shore
What's around Lough Gill
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
- 4marinas and slipways
- 1ferry piers
- 9viewpoints
Pier/Local rowing club, Yeats Memorial Building, O'Rourke's Table and 6 more
- 23hotels, B&Bs and chalets
Sligo City Hotel, The White House Hostel, Old Farm Cottage, An Cruiscin Lan B&B, Teach Eamainn and 18 more
- —fishing spots
- 39restaurants and cafés
Towns on the shore
- Sligo20,608 people
Nearest airport with scheduled flights: Ireland West Airport Knock (NOC), 46 km in a straight line.
Car hire at NOC airport (Charlestown)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 | 6.5 | 6.8 | 8.6 | 11.5 | 14.5 | 17.1 | 18.3 | 17.8 | 16.0 | 12.5 | 9.0 | 6.8 |
| 2020 | +0.7 | ±0.0 | −0.2 | +1.5 | +1.3 | −0.5 | −1.3 | +1.3 | +0.2 | −1.2 | +0.8 | −0.3 |
| 2021 | −1.4 | +0.5 | +1.2 | −0.6 | −1.1 | +0.3 | +2.8 | +1.1 | +2.0 | +1.1 | +1.1 | +1.2 |
| 2022 | +0.9 | +1.4 | +1.7 | +0.7 | +0.6 | −0.3 | +1.3 | +2.0 | +0.6 | +1.4 | +1.1 | −1.6 |
| 2023 | +0.4 | +2.2 | +0.3 | +0.5 | +1.9 | +3.4 | −0.7 | +0.4 | +1.9 | +0.8 | ±0.0 | +1.2 |
| 2024 | −0.3 | +1.8 | +0.7 | +0.3 | +2.2 | −0.9 | −0.5 | ±0.0 | −0.2 | +0.9 | +1.0 | +1.6 |
| 2025 | −0.3 | +0.9 | +2.2 | +2.4 | +2.8 | +1.1 | +1.5 | +2.0 | −0.4 | +0.3 | +0.5 | +0.7 |
+1 warmer than usual −1 cooler than usual
United KingdomAbout 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 (Q1010499) · 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.
