Lake · Chile
San Rafael Lagoon
Lake in Chile
- Area
- 130km²
- Average depth
- 11m
- Elevation
- 0m a.s.l.
- Shoreline
- 50km
- Volume
- 1.4km³
San Rafael Lagoon is a lake in Chile. It covers 130 km². On average it is 11 m deep. Its surface lies 0 m above sea level.
Plan your visit
Stay, sail and get there
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The water
How warm is San Rafael Lagoon?
The water is warmest in February, around 8 °C at the surface, and coldest in July, around 4 °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 12 °C on average in February and 3 °C in July. The driest month is February (96 mm of rain), the wettest June (167 mm).
Average surface temperature measured by the Landsat 8 satellite between 2013 and 2021 at the point furthest from the shore (63 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 | 8 | 8 | 12 | 5 | 119 | 21 | 6.5 | 11 |
| February | 8 | 8 | 12 | 6 | 96 | 17 | 6.3 | 10 |
| March | 8 | 8 | 10 | 5 | 125 | 20 | 4.9 | 10 |
| April | 7 | 7 | 8 | 3 | 147 | 20 | 3.9 | 10 |
| May | 6 | 6 | 6 | 2 | 166 | 22 | 2.8 | 10 |
| June | 4 | 5 | 4 | 0 | 167 | 21 | 2.1 | 11 |
| July | 4 | 4 | 3 | -1 | 134 | 21 | 3.0 | 11 |
| August | 4 | 4 | 4 | 0 | 146 | 22 | 3.4 | 11 |
| September | 4 | 5 | 6 | 1 | 104 | 20 | 4.8 | 10 |
| October | 5 | 6 | 7 | 2 | 139 | 20 | 5.2 | 11 |
| November | 6 | 7 | 9 | 3 | 130 | 21 | 5.6 | 11 |
| December | 7 | 8 | 11 | 4 | 134 | 22 | 5.8 | 12 |
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 3.1 years before flowing out.
- Its catchment drains 444 km² of land.
- About 15 m³ of water flow out every second, on average.
Around the shore
What's around San Rafael Lagoon
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
- —marinas and slipways
- —ferry piers
- —viewpoints
- —hotels, B&Bs and chalets
- —fishing spots
- —restaurants and cafés
Nearest airport with scheduled flights: Balmaceda Airport (BBA), 193 km in a straight line.
OpenStreetMap 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 | 11.7 | 12.5 | 10.5 | 8.3 | 6.0 | 3.6 | 3.1 | 4.0 | 5.8 | 7.4 | 9.0 | 10.6 |
| 2020 | −0.6 | −0.4 | +1.2 | +0.7 | +1.1 | −0.4 | −2.0 | −0.8 | −0.4 | −0.1 | +1.0 | −0.2 |
| 2021 | −0.2 | +2.2 | +1.7 | +1.5 | +0.5 | +0.3 | +1.1 | +0.2 | +0.5 | −0.1 | +0.4 | +3.0 |
| 2022 | +1.0 | +1.1 | −0.7 | −1.2 | −0.7 | −0.8 | −1.6 | −0.7 | −0.3 | −0.1 | +2.2 | −0.1 |
| 2023 | +1.0 | −0.9 | −1.5 | −0.5 | −0.2 | −0.3 | −0.4 | −0.6 | −1.2 | −0.4 | −1.7 | +0.5 |
| 2024 | +0.9 | +0.8 | −1.7 | −1.0 | −2.6 | −0.2 | −0.5 | +0.3 | −1.9 | +0.5 | −0.8 | +1.0 |
| 2025 | +0.2 | −2.1 | −0.4 | ±0.0 | −0.8 | −0.4 | +0.8 | +1.6 | +0.9 | −0.5 | +2.7 | −0.8 |
+1 warmer than usual −1 cooler than usual
Nearby
More lakes nearby
Chile294 km² · 47 km away14°maxLake General Carrera/Buenos AiresChile1,764 km² · 186 km away13°maxCochrane/Pueyrredón LakeChile299 km² · 168 km away12°maxO'Higgins/San Martín LakeChile1,010 km² · 300 km away10°maxCardiel Lake
Argentina349 km² · 325 km away13°maxViedma LakeArgentina1,193 km² · 362 km away11°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 (Q2917558) · 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.
