page_title: Crater Lake National Park
section_title: Climate
hierarchical_section_title: Crater Lake National Park / Climate
caption_attribution_description: English: Panoramic winter view of Crater lake from Rim Village.
context_page_description: Crater Lake National Park is an American national park located in southern Oregon. Established in 1902, Crater Lake is the fifth-oldest national park in the United States and the only national park in Oregon. The park encompasses the caldera of Crater Lake, a remnant of a destroyed volcano, Mount Mazama, and the surrounding hills and forests.
  The lake is 1,949 feet deep at its deepest point, which makes it the deepest lake in the United States, the second-deepest in North America and the ninth-deepest in the world. Crater Lake is often referred to as the seventh-deepest lake in the world, but this former listing excludes the approximately 3,000-foot depth of subglacial Lake Vostok in Antarctica, which resides under nearly 13,000 feet of ice, and the recent report of a 2,740-foot maximum depth for Lake O'Higgins/San Martin, located on the border of Chile and Argentina. However, when comparing its average depth of 1,148 feet to the average depth of other deep lakes, Crater Lake becomes the deepest in the Western Hemisphere and the third-deepest in the world.
context_section_description: According to the Köppen climate classification system, Crater Lake National Park has a continental subarctic climate - Cold Dry Summer (Dsc). The plant hardiness zone at the lake is 6b with an average annual extreme minimum air temperature of −3.7 °F (−19.8 °C).
  Snow is relatively rare at low elevations in western Oregon, but it is common at higher elevations, especially at Crater Lake. Measurements at park headquarters, 6,475 feet (1,974 m) above sea level, show that snow falls more often here than at any other long-term weather station in Oregon. Winter, which typically begins at the park in September and runs through June, includes an average of 98 days with measurable snowfall. Up to 37 inches (94 cm) of snow have fallen on the park in a single day (in 1937, 1951, and 1971), 313 inches (800 cm) in a month (January 1950), and 903 inches (2,290 cm) in a year (1950).
  Snow typically accumulates in the park to depths of 10 to 15 feet (3.0 to 4.6 m) by early spring. Most of the park's roads remain closed through late spring, and snow lingers into the summer. In July and August, snowfall is uncommon, and "one magnificent day typically follows another".
  January is the coldest month, when highs average about 35 °F (2 °C) and lows average about 18 °F (−8 °C). August is the warmest month, with an average high of roughly 69 °F (21 °C) and an average low of about 40 °F (4 °C). Between 1962 and 1990, the highest recorded temperature was 90 °F (32 °C), and the lowest was −21 °F (−29 °C). Annual precipitation averages about 66 inches (1,700 mm) a year. December is the wettest, averaging about 11 inches (280 mm).
  Although snow covers Crater Lake National Park for eight months of the year (average annual snowfall is 533 inches (1,350 cm)), the lake rarely freezes over due in part to a relatively mild onshore flow from the Pacific Ocean. The last recorded year in which the lake froze over was in 1949, a very long, cold winter. A 95% surface freeze occurred in 1985. The immense depth of Crater Lake acts as a heat reservoir that absorbs and traps sunlight, maintaining the lake temperature at an average of 55 °F (13 °C) on the surface and 38 °F (3 °C) at the bottom throughout the year. The surface temperature fluctuates a bit, but the bottom temperature remains quite constant.
caption: November panoroma from Rim Village. During the winter, the road up to Rim Village is normally plowed but Rim Drive is closed.
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