
In numbers.
32m
Height
Jun–Jul
Best months
2,803m
Elevation
The water at Devichyi Kosy, month by month
It roars from May to June.
The fullest months: from May to June, with the snowmelt. The thinnest: from December to February. Below −4 °C on average (from November to March): the falls can partly freeze.
- 18%Jan
- 20%Feb
- 45%Mar
- 66%Apr
- 100%May
- 88%Jun
- 59%Jul
- 38%Aug
- 37%Sep
- 37%Oct
- 30%Nov
- 21%Dec
Best months to go, with plenty of water and pleasant days: from June to July.
Estimate from rain, snowmelt and evaporation month by month (NASA POWER, 1991–2020) around the falls. Dams upstream can change the real flow.
Waterfall in Russia
Devichyi Kosy is a waterfall in Russia. The water falls 32 m. It lies within Prielbrusye National Park.
Getting there.
- Terskolnearest town · 2.6 km in a straight line
- Parking 1,130 m awaynearest car park in OpenStreetMap, straight line
- Nalchik Airport (NAL)nearest airport with scheduled flights · 96 km in a straight lineCar hire at KUT airport (Kopitnari)Discover Cars · Affiliate link↗
- From June to Julybest 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 from Wikidata. 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 392 m in 1.1 km. Here the river runs about 117 m below the lower rim of its valley.
What is around.
- 6viewpointsШикарный view point на Эльбрус и хребет and 5 more
- 2waymarked walking routesТреккинг к водопаду Терскол, Треккинг к водопаду Девичьи Косы
- 12car parks
- —swimming spots
- 7picnic sites
- 18toilets
- 2information boards and visitor centres
- —bus stops within 1 km
- 3other named waterfalls within 4 kmАзау, Сарыкая-Су, Водопад Терскол
- —caves
- 29campsitesБивуак, Место для лагеря с водой and 27 more
- 110hotels, B&Bs and huts within 6 kmБочки, ЯкПриют, Терскол and 107 more
- 53restaurants 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
- Terskol2.6 km in a straight line
- El’brus12 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 | -8 | -7 | -3 | 1 | 7 | 12 | 15 | 15 | 11 | 5 | -2 | -7 |
| Night °C | -18 | -17 | -14 | -9 | -3 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 0 | -5 | -11 | -16 |
| Rain & snow (mm) | 52 | 44 | 71 | 58 | 80 | 84 | 68 | 59 | 66 | 73 | 65 | 54 |
| Wet days | 12 | 10 | 13 | 12 | 14 | 15 | 12 | 12 | 10 | 11 | 10 | 11 |
| Sun h/day | 3.9 | 5.2 | 5.0 | 5.6 | 6.1 | 7.5 | 8.0 | 8.1 | 7.0 | 5.5 | 4.6 | 4.1 |
| Snow on the ground (cm) | 40 | 45 | 44 | 33 | 10 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 9 | 20 | 30 |
Long-term averages 1991–2020 (NASA POWER) for a cell about 55 km wide, with temperatures carried to the height of the falls (2,803 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 | 70% | 101% | 96% | 72% | 127% | 119% | 88% | 106% | 32% | 29% | 75% | 56% |
| 2021 | 133% | 299% | 109% | 176% | 150% | 119% | 132% | 114% | 115% | 71% | 66% | 101% |
| 2022 | 74% | 54% | 70% | 76% | 89% | 123% | 66% | 40% | 126% | 153% | 33% | 46% |
| 2023 | 19% | 114% | 108% | 132% | 153% | 125% | 119% | 20% | 80% | 71% | 195% | 124% |
| 2024 | 287% | 183% | 63% | 34% | 112% | 88% | 106% | 66% | 114% | 108% | 106% | 87% |
| 2025 | 42% | 95% | 93% | 226% | 98% | 78% | 72% | 54% | 193% | 173% | 17% | 66% |
130% wetter than usual 70% drier than usual
About these numbers
| Names, height, width, river | Wikidata (Q46999397) · CC0 |
|---|---|
| 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
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Same idea, other landscapes: field atlases built on open data, month by month, in seven languages.






