Lake · Ireland
Lough Leane
Lake in County Kerry, Ireland
- Area
- 21.2km²
- Average depth
- 14m
- Elevation
- 17m a.s.l.
- Shoreline
- 45km
- Volume
- 0.296km³
Lough Leane is a lake in Ireland. It covers 21.2 km². On average it is 14 m deep. Its surface lies 17 m above sea level.
Plan your visit
Stay, sail and get there
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The water
How warm is Lough Leane?
The water is warmest in July, around 18 °C at the surface, and coldest in January, around 6 °C. It rarely averages 20 °C, but it stays above 17 °C from July to August: brisk, refreshing swimming.
It does not normally freeze in winter.
On the shore, afternoons reach 18 °C on average in July and 8 °C in January. The driest month is April (84 mm of rain), the wettest December (143 mm).
Average surface temperature measured by the Landsat 8 satellite between 2013 and 2021 at the point furthest from the shore (59 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 | 6 | 6 | 8 | 4 | 138 | 21 | 1.6 | 23 |
| February | 6 | 6 | 8 | 3 | 104 | 18 | 2.6 | 23 |
| March | 8 | 9 | 9 | 4 | 95 | 17 | 4.1 | 21 |
| April | 11 | 12 | 12 | 5 | 84 | 16 | 5.9 | 19 |
| May | 14 | 16 | 14 | 7 | 91 | 17 | 6.3 | 19 |
| June | 17 | 18 | 17 | 10 | 94 | 17 | 6.2 | 18 |
| July | 18 | 18 | 18 | 12 | 105 | 20 | 5.3 | 18 |
| August | 17 | 18 | 18 | 11 | 110 | 20 | 5.1 | 18 |
| September | 15 | 16 | 16 | 10 | 101 | 17 | 4.5 | 19 |
| October | 13 | 14 | 13 | 8 | 128 | 20 | 3.1 | 20 |
| November | 10 | 11 | 10 | 6 | 142 | 21 | 1.9 | 21 |
| December | 7 | 8 | 8 | 4 | 143 | 21 | 1.2 | 23 |
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 4 months before flowing out.
- Its catchment drains 568 km² of land.
- About 27 m³ of water flow out every second, on average.
- Its shoreline is 2.8 times longer than a circle of the same area: plenty of bays and inlets.
Around the shore
What's around Lough Leane
Counted within 1.5 km of the shoreline in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit.
- 6beaches and swimming spots
McRose Beach and 5 more
- 3campsites
Fossa Caravan & Camping Park, Flesk Camping, Beech Grove Camping & Caravan Park
- —boat hire and water-sport clubs
- 1marinas and slipways
- 2ferry piers
Ross Castle Pier
- 19viewpoints
Torc Mountain, Meeting of the waters, Governer's rock and 16 more
- 40hotels, B&Bs and chalets
The Gleneagle Hotel, The Lake Hotel, Killarney Riverside Hotel, Cahernane House Hotel, B&B Flesk Lodge and 35 more
- —fishing spots
- 9restaurants and cafés
Towns on the shore
- Killarney14,504 people
Nearest airport with scheduled flights: Kerry Airport (KIR), 15 km in a straight line.
Car hire at KIR airport (Farranfore)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 | 7.9 | 7.9 | 9.2 | 11.6 | 14.1 | 16.8 | 18.0 | 17.7 | 16.2 | 13.2 | 10.0 | 8.3 |
| 2020 | +0.3 | +0.2 | −0.3 | +1.6 | +1.2 | −0.7 | −0.8 | +0.7 | −0.1 | −1.2 | +0.6 | −0.8 |
| 2021 | −1.0 | +0.2 | +1.0 | −0.4 | −1.5 | ±0.0 | +2.0 | +0.9 | +1.5 | +0.8 | +0.5 | +1.2 |
| 2022 | +0.8 | +1.5 | +1.3 | +0.5 | +1.2 | −0.4 | +1.4 | +2.4 | +0.6 | +1.3 | +1.0 | −1.6 |
| 2023 | +0.3 | +1.4 | +0.1 | +0.2 | +2.2 | +3.2 | −0.6 | +0.3 | +1.7 | +0.8 | ±0.0 | +0.9 |
| 2024 | −1.1 | +1.9 | +0.3 | +0.2 | +1.6 | −0.6 | −0.4 | +0.3 | ±0.0 | +0.7 | +1.2 | +1.1 |
| 2025 | −0.8 | +0.8 | +1.6 | +2.2 | +3.1 | +1.0 | +1.2 | +1.6 | −0.7 | ±0.0 | +0.8 | +0.1 |
+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 (Q6686132) · 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.
