Lake · Tanzania
Rukwa Lake
Lake in Songwe, Katavi and Rukwa Regions, Tanzania
- Area
- 5,895km²
- Max depth
- 5m
- Average depth
- 3.5m
- Elevation
- 801m a.s.l.
- Shoreline
- 590km
- Volume
- 20.6km³
Rukwa Lake is a lake in Tanzania. It covers 5,895 km². On average it is 3.5 m deep, and 5 m at its deepest point. Its surface lies 801 m above sea level.
Plan your visit
Stay, sail and get there
Some links above are affiliate links: if you book through them we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It never changes what the data on this page says.
The water
How warm is Rukwa Lake?
The water is warmest in December, around 26 °C at the surface, and coldest in July, around 22 °C. The surface averages 20 °C or more from January to December: comfortable for most swimmers.
It does not normally freeze in winter.
On the shore, afternoons reach 28 °C on average in October and 23 °C in June. The driest month is July (2 mm of rain), the wettest December (264 mm).
Average surface temperature measured by the Landsat 8 satellite between 2013 and 2021 at the point furthest from the shore (116 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 | 26 | 26 | 24 | 18 | 227 | 28 | 5.3 | 9 |
| February | 26 | 26 | 24 | 18 | 182 | 24 | 6.4 | 9 |
| March | 25 | 26 | 24 | 18 | 196 | 27 | 6.8 | 9 |
| April | 25 | 25 | 23 | 18 | 108 | 17 | 8.0 | 14 |
| May | 24 | 24 | 23 | 15 | 16 | 4 | 9.6 | 16 |
| June | 22 | 23 | 23 | 13 | 2 | 0 | 10.2 | 16 |
| July | 22 | 22 | 23 | 12 | 2 | 0 | 10.3 | 17 |
| August | 22 | 22 | 25 | 14 | 4 | 1 | 10.2 | 16 |
| September | 23 | 24 | 28 | 17 | 5 | 1 | 9.9 | 16 |
| October | 25 | 26 | 28 | 19 | 35 | 6 | 9.2 | 15 |
| November | 26 | 26 | 27 | 20 | 161 | 18 | 7.4 | 11 |
| December | 26 | 26 | 24 | 19 | 264 | 27 | 5.8 | 9 |
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 15 months before flowing out.
- Its catchment drains 79,610 km² of land.
- About 520 m³ of water flow out every second, on average.
Around the shore
What's around Rukwa Lake
Counted within 1.5 km of the shoreline in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit.
Nearest airport with scheduled flights: Songwe Airport (MBI), 165 km in a straight line.
Car hire at MWZ airport (Mwanza)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 | 23.6 | 23.9 | 23.7 | 23.2 | 23.2 | 22.7 | 23.1 | 25.2 | 27.5 | 28.5 | 26.7 | 24.2 |
| 2020 | +0.2 | −0.2 | −0.2 | −0.3 | −0.8 | −0.9 | −1.7 | −0.9 | −0.7 | −0.7 | −0.7 | −0.9 |
| 2021 | −0.6 | −0.5 | −0.1 | −1.0 | −0.8 | −0.7 | −1.2 | −0.4 | −0.8 | +0.1 | +0.5 | +2.1 |
| 2022 | −0.2 | −0.8 | −0.3 | −0.3 | −0.7 | −1.6 | −1.7 | −1.1 | −1.3 | −0.1 | −1.1 | −1.0 |
| 2023 | −0.6 | −0.3 | −0.5 | −0.3 | −0.7 | +0.2 | −0.5 | −0.2 | +0.6 | +1.3 | +0.8 | +0.4 |
| 2024 | +0.2 | +0.6 | ±0.0 | ±0.0 | −0.1 | −0.8 | +0.2 | −0.6 | +0.2 | −1.0 | +0.9 | ±0.0 |
| 2025 | −0.2 | +1.0 | +0.6 | +0.4 | −0.4 | +0.1 | −0.1 | −0.4 | +0.4 | +1.2 | +0.8 | +2.1 |
+1 warmer than usual −1 cooler than usual
DR Congo
ZambiaAbout 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 (Q1143935) · 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.
