Glacial lake · Canada
Quesnel Lake
Glacial lake in British Columbia, Canada
- Area
- 271km²
- Max depth
- 506m
- Average depth
- 159m
- Elevation
- 723m a.s.l.
- Shoreline
- 324km
- Volume
- 43.0km³
Quesnel Lake is a glacial lake in Canada. It covers 271 km². On average it is 159 m deep, and 506 m at its deepest point. Its surface lies 723 m above sea level.
Plan your visit
Stay, sail and get there
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The water
How warm is Quesnel Lake?
The water is warmest in August, around 19 °C at the surface, and coldest in January, around 0 °C. It rarely averages 20 °C, but it stays above 17 °C from July to August: brisk, refreshing swimming.
The lake usually freezes over for about 113 days a year, from around 1 December to 23 March.
On the shore, afternoons reach 20 °C on average in July and -6 °C in December. The driest month is August (50 mm of rain), the wettest October (90 mm).
Average surface temperature measured by the Landsat 8 satellite between 2013 and 2021 at the point furthest from the shore (122 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 | Ice | — | -5 | -12 | 78 | 16 | 1.9 | 8 |
| February | Ice | — | -4 | -13 | 54 | 12 | 4.2 | 7 |
| March | Ice | — | 0 | -8 | 63 | 15 | 5.5 | 8 |
| April | 2 | 3 | 6 | -3 | 54 | 13 | 6.8 | 7 |
| May | 6 | 8 | 14 | 3 | 64 | 14 | 7.6 | 6 |
| June | 12 | 15 | 18 | 7 | 82 | 16 | 7.6 | 6 |
| July | 17 | 19 | 20 | 10 | 67 | 14 | 8.9 | 6 |
| August | 19 | 19 | 20 | 9 | 50 | 12 | 8.2 | 6 |
| September | 15 | 18 | 14 | 4 | 69 | 12 | 5.7 | 6 |
| October | 8 | 12 | 7 | -1 | 90 | 15 | 3.4 | 7 |
| November | 2 | 5 | -1 | -8 | 88 | 17 | 1.3 | 8 |
| December | Ice | — | -6 | -13 | 68 | 16 | 1.2 | 8 |
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 13 years before flowing out.
- Its catchment drains 6,042 km² of land.
- About 107 m³ of water flow out every second, on average.
- Its shoreline is 5.6 times longer than a circle of the same area: plenty of bays and inlets.
Around the shore
What's around Quesnel Lake
Counted within 1.5 km of the shoreline in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit.
- —beaches and swimming spots
- 10campsites
Cedar Point Campground, Horsefly Bay Recreation Site, Cariboo Island North Recreation Site, Cariboo Island South Recreation Site and 6 more
- —boat hire and water-sport clubs
- 1marinas and slipways
- —ferry piers
- —viewpoints
- 1hotels, B&Bs and chalets
Silvertip Lodge
- —fishing spots
- —restaurants and cafés
Nearest airport with scheduled flights: Williams Lake Airport (YWL), 79 km in a straight line.
Car hire at YWL airport (Williams Lake)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 | -5.0 | -3.8 | 0.5 | 6.5 | 14.0 | 17.5 | 20.5 | 19.9 | 14.3 | 6.6 | -1.0 | -5.8 |
| 2020 | −0.1 | +1.1 | −2.5 | −3.3 | −0.8 | −1.7 | −2.0 | −1.9 | +1.4 | −2.0 | +0.6 | +2.2 |
| 2021 | +1.5 | −2.5 | +0.6 | +0.8 | −1.4 | +2.9 | +2.7 | −0.7 | −0.4 | −0.6 | +1.6 | −5.6 |
| 2022 | +0.6 | +0.6 | +0.2 | −2.1 | −3.5 | −0.5 | +1.6 | +3.3 | +3.3 | +4.9 | −3.3 | −4.5 |
| 2023 | +1.7 | −0.2 | −1.4 | +0.8 | +5.0 | +2.5 | +1.9 | +1.2 | +1.6 | +3.3 | +1.4 | +4.5 |
| 2024 | −0.6 | +2.5 | +2.8 | +0.6 | −0.9 | −0.7 | +4.0 | +2.3 | +3.0 | ±0.0 | +0.1 | +3.9 |
| 2025 | −0.5 | −3.8 | +0.7 | +2.3 | +0.2 | +1.1 | +0.7 | +1.5 | +5.0 | +0.5 | +1.3 | +2.7 |
+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 (Q1495461) · 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.
