
In numbers.
26m
Height
OpenStreetMap
Aug–Nov
Best months
138m
Elevation
The water at Falls of Clyde, month by month
It roars in August and from October to March.
The fullest months: August and from October to March.
- 100%Jan
- 87%Feb
- 78%Mar
- 65%Apr
- 57%May
- 58%Jun
- 67%Jul
- 79%Aug
- 72%Sep
- 90%Oct
- 96%Nov
- 97%Dec
Best months to go, with plenty of water and pleasant days: from August to November.
Estimate from rain, snowmelt and evaporation month by month (NASA POWER, 1991–2020) around the falls. Dams upstream can change the real flow.
Group of waterfalls in Scotland, United Kingdom
Falls of Clyde is a waterfall in United Kingdom. The water falls 26 m.
Getting there.
- Lanarknearest town · 2.2 km in a straight line
- Parking 1,070 m awaynearest car park in OpenStreetMap, straight line
- Edinburgh Airport (EDI)nearest airport with scheduled flights · 41 km in a straight lineCar hire at EDI airport (Ingliston, Edinburgh)Discover Cars · Affiliate link↗
- From August to Novemberbest months to go (estimate)
Plan your visit
Stay, explore 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.
How big is it?
How big it really is.
Height of the drop as mapped in OpenStreetMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors). Buildings and the person are drawn at the same scale.
Seen from the sky.
8 × 8 km of cloud-free satellite image, with what OpenStreetMap knows around the falls.
N
2 km
Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 (EOX, CC BY 4.0), 8 × 8 km, north up. Points © OpenStreetMap contributors.
The line follows the river as mapped in OpenStreetMap; heights from the 30 m Copernicus model, which smooths narrow drops — the published height of the falls is the one above.
Around the falls the river drops 66 m in 3.1 km. Here the river runs about 46 m below the lower rim of its valley.
What is around.
- 16viewpointsMill Weir Viewpoint, Dipper Viewpoint and 14 more
- 1waymarked walking routesClyde Walkway
- 32car parks
- —swimming spots
- 23picnic sites
- 3toilets
- 6information boards and visitor centres
- —bus stops within 1 km
- 3other named waterfalls within 4 kmDunduff Linn, Bonnington Linn, Stonebyres
- —caves
- 3campsitesClyde Valley Caravan Park, Newhouse Park Farm
- 7hotels, B&Bs and huts within 6 kmWee Row Youth Hostel, New Lanark Mill Hotel, Cartland Bridge Hotel and 4 more
- 6restaurants and cafés within 3 km
Counted in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit, up to 2 km around the falls (unless noted). A low number may just mean nobody has mapped it yet. © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).
Towns nearby
- Lanark2.2 km in a straight line
- Lesmahagow7.5 km in a straight line
- Blackwood9.2 km in a straight line
- Carluke9.8 km in a straight line
- Coalburn10 km in a straight line
- Carnwath10 km in a straight line
- Dalserf13 km in a straight line
- Law13 km in a straight line
Weather
The weather, month by month.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Afternoon °C | 5 | 5 | 7 | 11 | 14 | 17 | 18 | 18 | 15 | 12 | 8 | 6 |
| Night °C | 1 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 6 | 9 | 11 | 10 | 9 | 6 | 4 | 2 |
| Rain & snow (mm) | 120 | 92 | 85 | 70 | 82 | 103 | 120 | 129 | 97 | 128 | 116 | 117 |
| Wet days | 20 | 17 | 18 | 16 | 16 | 19 | 21 | 21 | 18 | 20 | 20 | 19 |
| Sun h/day | 1.2 | 2.3 | 3.5 | 5.4 | 6.4 | 5.1 | 5.1 | 4.6 | 4.0 | 2.5 | 1.6 | 0.9 |
| Snow on the ground (cm) | 10 | 10 | 7 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 8 |
Long-term averages 1991–2020 (NASA POWER) for a cell about 55 km wide, with temperatures carried to the height of the falls (138 m) at −6.5 °C per 1,000 m. Not a forecast.
Photos
Through visitors' eyes.
Recent years
Wet years and dry years
Rain of each month as a share of the 1991–2020 average. A wet season above 100 % usually means a fuller waterfall.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 103% | 220% | 101% | 28% | 64% | 125% | 127% | 107% | 81% | 123% | 117% | 111% |
| 2021 | 104% | 137% | 115% | 29% | 136% | 41% | 54% | 70% | 89% | 145% | 70% | 105% |
| 2022 | 52% | 184% | 59% | 94% | 116% | 76% | 56% | 54% | 110% | 132% | 131% | 91% |
| 2023 | 99% | 68% | 144% | 96% | 53% | 69% | 143% | 61% | 139% | 84% | 102% | 151% |
| 2024 | 102% | 112% | 133% | 227% | 143% | 67% | 92% | 123% | 53% | 68% | 48% | 105% |
| 2025 | 53% | 73% | 51% | 70% | 69% | 99% | 81% | 54% | 120% | 81% | 166% | 104% |
130% wetter than usual 70% drier than usual
Compare with the waterfalls nearby.
About these numbers
| Names, height, width, river | Wikidata (Q37493) · CC0 |
|---|---|
| Height of the drop | © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL |
| Climate | NASA POWER, 1991–2020 |
| Relief, river profile, 3D model | Copernicus DEM GLO-30 · © DLR e.V., © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH, Copernicus/ESA |
| Paths, viewpoints, parking | © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL |
| Images | EOX Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 · CC BY 4.0; Wikimedia Commons |
Every figure is an average, an estimate or a count from a public dataset. Licences and methods: data sources.
The family
Do you prefer beaches, lakes, mountains, waterfalls, islands, rivers, canyons, caves or dark skies?
Same idea, other landscapes: field atlases built on open data, month by month, in seven languages.






