Lake · Russia
Valdai
Lake in Novgorod Oblast, Russia
- Area
- 19.9km²
- Max depth
- 60m
- Average depth
- 7.5m
- Elevation
- 191m a.s.l.
- Shoreline
- 60km
- Volume
- 0.150km³
Valdai is a lake in Russia. It covers 19.9 km². On average it is 7.5 m deep, and 60 m at its deepest point. Its surface lies 191 m above sea level.
Plan your visit
Stay, sail and get there
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The water
How warm is Valdai?
The water is warmest in July, around 20 °C at the surface, and coldest in January, around 0 °C. The surface averages 20 °C or more in July: comfortable for most swimmers.
The lake usually freezes over for about 135 days a year, from around 22 November to 5 April.
On the shore, afternoons reach 22 °C on average in July and -7 °C in January. The driest month is February (47 mm of rain), the wettest July (112 mm).
Average surface temperature measured by the Landsat 8 satellite between 2013 and 2021 at the point furthest from the shore (79 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 | -12 | 59 | 16 | 0.7 | 9 |
| February | Ice | — | -6 | -12 | 47 | 13 | 2.8 | 9 |
| March | Ice | — | -1 | -7 | 52 | 13 | 5.3 | 9 |
| April | 3 | 8 | 8 | -1 | 60 | 13 | 6.6 | 8 |
| May | 12 | 16 | 16 | 6 | 86 | 15 | 8.0 | 7 |
| June | 18 | 20 | 20 | 10 | 109 | 18 | 7.7 | 7 |
| July | 20 | 21 | 22 | 13 | 112 | 19 | 7.7 | 6 |
| August | 19 | 20 | 20 | 12 | 108 | 17 | 6.4 | 7 |
| September | 15 | 18 | 15 | 7 | 70 | 14 | 4.0 | 7 |
| October | 9 | 13 | 7 | 1 | 90 | 16 | 1.1 | 8 |
| November | 2 | 6 | 0 | -4 | 79 | 16 | 0.0 | 9 |
| December | Ice | — | -4 | -9 | 65 | 16 | 0.0 | 10 |
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 98 km² of land.
- About 0.9 m³ of water flow out every second, on average.
- Its shoreline is 3.8 times longer than a circle of the same area: plenty of bays and inlets.
Around the shore
What's around Valdai
Counted within 1.5 km of the shoreline in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit.
- 3beaches and swimming spots
- 8campsites
camping “Lesnaya skazka” and 7 more
- 1boat hire and water-sport clubs
- 1marinas and slipways
- 3ferry piers
- —viewpoints
- 26hotels, B&Bs and chalets
Incomplit hotel construction, Barn House, AFrame and 23 more
- —fishing spots
- 17restaurants and cafés
Towns on the shore
- Valday18,549 people
Nearest airport with scheduled flights: Pulkovo Airport (LED), 268 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 | -6.8 | -5.5 | -0.6 | 8.0 | 16.4 | 19.6 | 22.4 | 20.5 | 14.8 | 6.6 | 0.2 | -4.4 |
| 2020 | +6.7 | +5.7 | +3.7 | −2.2 | −3.3 | +2.7 | −2.6 | −0.9 | +1.0 | +3.0 | +2.1 | −0.5 |
| 2021 | −1.1 | −4.0 | −0.9 | −0.4 | −0.6 | +4.0 | +2.9 | −0.7 | −3.6 | +1.1 | +1.7 | −3.9 |
| 2022 | +0.7 | +3.6 | −1.1 | −2.2 | −3.8 | +1.8 | −0.4 | +3.9 | −3.4 | +1.4 | −1.5 | −1.0 |
| 2023 | +1.3 | +0.4 | ±0.0 | +2.5 | −0.9 | +0.3 | −2.0 | +2.7 | +3.6 | −0.8 | −0.9 | −1.9 |
| 2024 | −3.1 | +0.9 | +2.3 | +3.2 | +0.3 | +2.6 | +1.6 | +1.3 | +5.2 | +2.2 | +1.1 | +2.0 |
| 2025 | +5.7 | −0.4 | +4.5 | +1.3 | −1.6 | −1.2 | +1.9 | −1.5 | +1.9 | +0.6 | +1.5 | +1.9 |
+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 (Q2415261) · 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.
