New Zealand 
In numbers.
200m
Height
0.88m³/s
Average flow
estimate
Nov–Feb
Best months
1.7MW
Water power
estimate
The water at Heads Leap, month by month
It roars from May to January.
It carries water fairly evenly through the year.
- 1.2 m³/sJan
- 0.7 m³/sFeb
- 0.6 m³/sMar
- 0.6 m³/sApr
- 1.0 m³/sMay
- 0.9 m³/sJun
- 1.0 m³/sJul
- 1.0 m³/sAug
- 1.4 m³/sSep
- 1.5 m³/sOct
- 1.3 m³/sNov
- 1.3 m³/sDec
From about 0.56 m³/s in the lowest month to 1.5 m³/s in the highest. Best months to go, with plenty of water and pleasant days: from November to February.
Estimate: the timing comes from rain, snowmelt and evaporation (NASA POWER, 1991–2020); the amounts from the river model of HydroATLAS (WaterGAP, 1971–2000). Dams upstream can change the real flow.
Waterfall in Mount Aspiring National Park, New Zealand
Heads Leap is a waterfall in New Zealand. The water falls 200 m. It lies within Mount Aspiring National Park.
Getting there.
- Wanaka Airport (WKA)nearest airport with scheduled flights · 55 km in a straight lineCar hire at ZQN airport (Queenstown)Discover Cars · Affiliate link↗
- From November to Februarybest 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.
1.7 MW
About 0.88 m³/s falling 200 m: the power of the water as it drops.
- enough to power about 431 homes, if it were all turned into electricity
Power of falling water = density × gravity × flow × height. Average flow and height as shown above; an estimate.
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 616 m in 2.5 km.
What is around.
- 1viewpoints
- 1waymarked walking routesRob Roy Glacier Lookout
- —car parks
- —swimming spots
- 1picnic sites
- 2toilets
- —information boards and visitor centres
- —bus stops within 1 km
- —other named waterfalls within 4 km
- —caves
- 3campsitesAspiring Campsite
- —hotels, B&Bs and huts within 6 km
- —restaurants 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).
Weather
The weather, month by month.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Afternoon °C | 13 | 13 | 11 | 8 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 7 | 10 | 12 |
| Night °C | 4 | 4 | 2 | 0 | -2 | -4 | -5 | -4 | -3 | -2 | 0 | 3 |
| Rain & snow (mm) | 160 | 122 | 130 | 126 | 156 | 140 | 135 | 129 | 158 | 154 | 142 | 164 |
| Wet days | 17 | 14 | 16 | 16 | 19 | 17 | 17 | 19 | 18 | 20 | 17 | 18 |
| Sun h/day | 7.3 | 7.5 | 6.1 | 5.1 | 3.5 | 3.5 | 3.6 | 4.4 | 4.9 | 5.4 | 6.4 | 6.9 |
| Snow on the ground (cm) | 0 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 9 | 16 | 17 | 15 | 11 | 8 | 4 | 1 |
Long-term averages 1991–2020 (NASA POWER) for a cell about 55 km wide, with temperatures carried to the height of the falls (1,322 m) at −6.5 °C per 1,000 m. Not a forecast.
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 | 50% | 159% | 95% | 123% | 79% | 65% | 160% | 103% | 169% | 119% | 56% | 89% |
| 2021 | 141% | 42% | 96% | 114% | 98% | 112% | 157% | 130% | 123% | 91% | 102% | 115% |
| 2022 | 21% | 198% | 36% | 94% | 76% | 169% | 120% | 191% | 80% | 96% | 118% | 55% |
| 2023 | 29% | 128% | 184% | 85% | 194% | 80% | 73% | 92% | 157% | 106% | 76% | 97% |
| 2024 | 144% | 99% | 115% | 194% | 27% | 56% | 75% | 145% | 191% | 150% | 127% | 104% |
| 2025 | 31% | 38% | 64% | 93% | 106% | 97% | 62% | 77% | 190% | 223% | 129% | 104% |
130% wetter than usual 70% drier than usual
Compare with the waterfalls nearby.
Heads Leap
New Zealand
- 200 mHeight
- 0.88 m³/sAverage flow
- Nov–FebBest months
About these numbers
| Names, height, width, river | Wikidata (Q32219067) · CC0 |
|---|---|
| River flow and catchment | HydroATLAS / RiverATLAS v1.0 (Linke et al. 2019) · CC BY 4.0 |
| 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.
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