Lake · Canada
Stuart Lake
Lake in British Columbia, Canada
- Area
- 358km²
- Max depth
- 95m
- Average depth
- 66m
- Elevation
- 678m a.s.l.
- Shoreline
- 260km
- Volume
- 23.8km³
Stuart Lake is a lake in Canada. It covers 358 km². On average it is 66 m deep, and 95 m at its deepest point. Its surface lies 678 m above sea level.
Plan your visit
Stay, sail and get there
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The water
How warm is Stuart 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 138 days a year, from around 29 November to 15 April.
On the shore, afternoons reach 20 °C on average in July and -8 °C in December. The driest month is February (42 mm of rain), the wettest November (81 mm).
Average surface temperature measured by the Landsat 8 satellite between 2013 and 2021 at the point furthest from the shore (113 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 | — | -7 | -14 | 67 | 16 | 1.7 | 7 |
| February | Ice | — | -6 | -14 | 42 | 11 | 4.2 | 7 |
| March | Ice | — | -2 | -10 | 55 | 13 | 6.0 | 8 |
| April | Ice | — | 5 | -4 | 44 | 12 | 7.5 | 7 |
| May | 8 | 11 | 13 | 2 | 56 | 13 | 8.4 | 7 |
| June | 13 | 16 | 17 | 7 | 66 | 15 | 9.0 | 7 |
| July | 18 | 19 | 20 | 9 | 66 | 14 | 9.0 | 7 |
| August | 19 | 19 | 20 | 8 | 52 | 11 | 8.2 | 7 |
| September | 15 | 18 | 14 | 4 | 61 | 12 | 5.9 | 7 |
| October | 10 | 13 | 6 | -2 | 80 | 17 | 3.5 | 7 |
| November | 3 | 6 | -3 | -9 | 81 | 17 | 1.5 | 7 |
| December | Ice | — | -8 | -15 | 60 | 15 | 1.3 | 7 |
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 5.2 years before flowing out.
- Its catchment drains 14,172 km² of land.
- About 144 m³ of water flow out every second, on average.
- Its shoreline is 3.9 times longer than a circle of the same area: plenty of bays and inlets.
Around the shore
What's around Stuart Lake
Counted within 1.5 km of the shoreline in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit.
- 1beaches and swimming spots
Paarens Beach
- 5campsites
Sowchea Bay Campground, Battleship Bay Recreation Site, Paarens Beach Campground
- —boat hire and water-sport clubs
- 3marinas and slipways
- —ferry piers
- —viewpoints
- 3hotels, B&Bs and chalets
New Caledonia Motel, Chundoo Motor Inn, The View Hotel
- —fishing spots
- 6restaurants and cafés
Towns on the shore
- Fort St. James1,386 people
Nearest airport with scheduled flights: Burns Lake Airport (YPZ), 95 km in a straight line.
Car hire at YXS airport (Prince George)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 | -7.4 | -5.8 | -1.7 | 4.7 | 13.3 | 17.0 | 19.9 | 19.8 | 14.1 | 5.5 | -2.6 | -7.9 |
| 2020 | −2.2 | +2.9 | −1.9 | −1.6 | +0.6 | −2.1 | −2.2 | −3.3 | +0.7 | −1.6 | +0.6 | +2.3 |
| 2021 | +1.7 | −3.7 | +1.6 | −0.6 | −0.8 | +2.9 | +2.2 | +0.6 | −0.9 | −1.1 | +2.5 | −6.5 |
| 2022 | +0.5 | +2.2 | +2.7 | −1.7 | −3.4 | +0.7 | +0.8 | +3.6 | +3.8 | +6.4 | −3.3 | −4.8 |
| 2023 | +3.3 | +1.1 | −1.5 | +1.1 | +5.7 | +3.1 | +2.8 | +3.0 | +1.5 | +2.4 | +2.2 | +4.7 |
| 2024 | −3.5 | −0.6 | ±0.0 | +1.3 | −0.7 | −0.8 | +3.8 | +2.6 | +1.3 | ±0.0 | −1.8 | +2.6 |
| 2025 | +0.8 | −4.8 | +1.0 | +1.8 | −1.0 | +0.3 | +0.1 | +1.8 | +3.4 | +1.5 | +1.7 | +0.5 |
+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 (Q133473) · 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.
