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United States United States Waterfall

Nugget Falls

A 115 m drop.

When to go

Glaciar Mendenhall y cascada Nugget, Juneau, Alaska, Estados Unidos, 2017-08-17, DD 07
Diego Delso · CC BY-SA 4.0

In numbers.

115m

Height

OpenStreetMap

2.8m³/s

Average flow

estimate

May–Jul
Sep

Best months

3.1MW

Water power

estimate

The water at Nugget Falls, month by month

It roars from May to July and from September to October.

The fullest months: from May to July and from September to October, with the snowmelt. The thinnest: February.

  1. 1.8 m³/sJan
  2. 1.0 m³/sFeb
  3. 1.1 m³/sMar
  4. 2.4 m³/sApr
  5. 5.0 m³/sMay
  6. 5.8 m³/sJun
  7. 4.6 m³/sJul
  8. 3.9 m³/sAug
  9. 4.4 m³/sSep
  10. 4.6 m³/sOct
  11. 3.3 m³/sNov
  12. 2.2 m³/sDec
high water best months to go

From about 0.96 m³/s in the lowest month to 5.8 m³/s in the highest. Best months to go, with plenty of water and pleasant days: from May to July and September.

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

Nugget Falls is a waterfall in United States. The water falls 115 m.

Read more on Wikipedia

Getting there.

  • Juneaunearest town · 16 km in a straight line
  • Parking 1,290 m awaynearest car park in OpenStreetMap, straight line
  • Juneau International Airport (JNU)nearest airport with scheduled flights · 8 km in a straight lineCar hire at JNU airport (Juneau)Discover Cars · Affiliate link
  • From May to July and Septemberbest 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.

115 mNugget Falls1.8 ma person93 mStatue ofLiberty96 mBig Ben139 mGreat Pyramid

Height of the drop as mapped in OpenStreetMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors). Buildings and the person are drawn at the same scale.

3.1 MW

About 2.8 m³/s falling 115 m: the power of the water as it drops.

  • as much as 1.0 large wind turbines
  • enough to power about 787 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.

Nugget Falls seen from above (Sentinel-2) N 2 km

Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 (EOX, CC BY 4.0), 8 × 8 km, north up. Points © OpenStreetMap contributors.

The river through the falls
100 m200 mNugget Falls-1.5 km-1 km-0.5 km0← upstreamdownstream →

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.

The valley below the falls
−690 m+690 m

Around the falls the river drops 181 m in 1.8 km.

What is around.

  • 9viewpointsPavilion, (overgrown viewpoint) and 7 more
  • —waymarked walking routes
  • 4car parks
  • —swimming spots
  • —picnic sites
  • 3toilets
  • —information boards and visitor centres
  • —bus stops within 1 km
  • 1other named waterfalls within 4 kmAJ Falls
  • 1caves
  • 2campsitesGlacier Nalu Campground Resort, Mendenhall Campground
  • 1hotels, B&Bs and huts within 6 kmPearson's Pond Suites
  • —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).

Towns nearby

  • Juneau16 km in a straight line

Weather

The weather, month by month.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Afternoon °C-1-11591416161271-1
Night °C-6-6-5069121283-3-5
Rain & snow (mm)339221209172154148204280369384328345
Wet days221920191820232224252324
Sun h/day0.52.13.85.66.76.55.24.43.11.70.70.2
Snow on the ground (cm)2012512772501485014362672138

Long-term averages 1991–2020 (NASA POWER) for a cell about 55 km wide, with temperatures carried to the height of the falls (20 m) at −6.5 °C per 1,000 m. Not a forecast.

Photos

Through visitors' eyes.

Cascada Nugget, Juneau, Alaska, Estados Unidos, 2017-08-17, DD 06
Diego Delso · CC BY-SA 4.0
1 Nugget Falls Aug 2025 452
Gillfoto · CC BY-SA 4.0
1 Nugget Falls AUG 2025 478
Gillfoto · CC BY-SA 4.0

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.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
202085%190%84%140%63%148%123%150%57%95%102%178%
2021106%101%147%101%154%147%53%127%110%107%104%53%
2022127%210%136%75%79%86%143%114%129%176%104%66%
2023104%105%86%123%134%117%49%85%125%119%121%164%
2024112%77%106%83%181%81%188%83%108%109%67%101%
2025103%74%80%171%218%141%80%78%126%111%112%101%

130% wetter than usual 70% drier than usual

About these numbers

Names, height, width, riverWikidata (Q37971) · CC0
Height of the drop© OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL
River flow and catchmentHydroATLAS / RiverATLAS v1.0 (Linke et al. 2019) · CC BY 4.0
ClimateNASA POWER, 1991–2020
Relief, river profile, 3D modelCopernicus DEM GLO-30 · © DLR e.V., © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH, Copernicus/ESA
Paths, viewpoints, parking© OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL
ImagesEOX 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 or canyons?

Same idea, other landscapes: field atlases built on open data, month by month, in seven languages.