New Zealand 
In numbers.
11m
Height
200m³/s
Average flow
May–Aug
Best months
22MW
Water power
estimate
The water at Huka Falls, month by month
It roars from May to September.
The fullest months: from May to September.
- 144 m³/sJan
- 133 m³/sFeb
- 139 m³/sMar
- 181 m³/sApr
- 213 m³/sMay
- 250 m³/sJun
- 262 m³/sJul
- 244 m³/sAug
- 210 m³/sSep
- 188 m³/sOct
- 146 m³/sNov
- 158 m³/sDec
From about 133 m³/s in the lowest month to 262 m³/s in the highest. Best months to go, with plenty of water and pleasant days: from May to August.
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 New Zealand
Huka Falls is a waterfall in New Zealand. The water falls 11 m over a front 15 m wide.
Getting there.
- Tauponearest town · 3.7 km in a straight line
- Parking 130 m awaynearest car park in OpenStreetMap, straight line
- Taupo Airport (TUO)nearest airport with scheduled flights · 10 km in a straight lineCar hire at ROT airport (Rotorua)Discover Cars · Affiliate link↗
- From May to Augustbest 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.
22 MW
About 200 m³/s falling 11 m: the power of the water as it drops.
- as much as 7.2 large wind turbines
- enough to power about 5,400 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 10 m in 3.5 km. Here the river runs about 64 m below the lower rim of its valley.
What is around.
- 14viewpointsMud Crater and 13 more
- —waymarked walking routes
- 18car parks
- —swimming spots
- 7picnic sites
- 6toilets
- 24information boards and visitor centres
- —bus stops within 1 km
- —other named waterfalls within 4 km
- 1caves
- 8campsitesAratiatia Freedom Camping, Taupo DeBretts Spa Resort, Lake Taupo Holiday Resort and 5 more
- 56hotels, B&Bs and huts within 6 kmBella Vista Motel, YHA Taupo Finlay Jacks Backpackers, Haka Lodge Taupō and 53 more
- 3restaurants 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
- Taupo3.7 km in a straight line
- Acacia Bay7.7 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 | 24 | 24 | 22 | 18 | 14 | 11 | 10 | 11 | 13 | 16 | 18 | 21 |
| Night °C | 13 | 13 | 11 | 9 | 7 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 9 | 12 |
| Rain & snow (mm) | 71 | 63 | 70 | 88 | 90 | 100 | 99 | 87 | 76 | 78 | 57 | 86 |
| Wet days | 10 | 9 | 11 | 12 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 15 | 14 | 14 | 12 | 13 |
| Sun h/day | 8.4 | 7.4 | 6.8 | 5.6 | 4.6 | 3.9 | 4.3 | 4.8 | 5.4 | 6.4 | 7.4 | 7.3 |
| Snow on the ground (cm) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Long-term averages 1991–2020 (NASA POWER) for a cell about 55 km wide, with temperatures carried to the height of the falls (346 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 | 32% | 22% | 85% | 33% | 63% | 193% | 93% | 83% | 67% | 93% | 226% | 34% |
| 2021 | 50% | 65% | 99% | 48% | 92% | 109% | 89% | 92% | 142% | 136% | 149% | 136% |
| 2022 | 32% | 285% | 226% | 52% | 109% | 174% | 192% | 104% | 240% | 154% | 315% | 167% |
| 2023 | 303% | 312% | 95% | 70% | 233% | 139% | 81% | 60% | 229% | 82% | 213% | 128% |
| 2024 | 118% | 58% | 73% | 66% | 103% | 129% | 108% | 99% | 56% | 129% | 72% | 113% |
| 2025 | 67% | 60% | 78% | 144% | 121% | 164% | 188% | 86% | 121% | 156% | 213% | 123% |
130% wetter than usual 70% drier than usual
Compare with the waterfalls nearby.
Huka Falls
New Zealand
- 11 mHeight
- 200 m³/sAverage flow
- May–AugBest months
About these numbers
| Names, height, width, river | Wikidata (Q38477) · 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.
The family
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