Namibia / Angola 
In numbers.
120m
Height
216m³/s
Average flow
estimate
Jan–Apr
Best months
254MW
Water power
estimate
The water at Ruacana Falls, month by month
It roars from February to March.
The fullest months: from February to March. The thinnest: from June to December.
- 323 m³/sJan
- 438 m³/sFeb
- 517 m³/sMar
- 348 m³/sApr
- 196 m³/sMay
- 64 m³/sJun
- 51 m³/sJul
- 51 m³/sAug
- 51 m³/sSep
- 55 m³/sOct
- 80 m³/sNov
- 155 m³/sDec
From about 51 m³/s in the lowest month to 517 m³/s in the highest. Best months to go, with plenty of water and pleasant days: from January to April.
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
Ruacana Falls is a waterfall in Namibia. The water falls 120 m over a front 700 m wide.
Getting there.
- Ruacananearest town · 21 km in a straight line
- Ngjiva Pereira Airport (VPE)nearest airport with scheduled flights · 161 km in a straight lineCar hire at OND airport (Ondangwa)Discover Cars · Affiliate link↗
- From January to Aprilbest 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.
254 MW
About 216 m³/s falling 120 m: the power of the water as it drops.
- as much as 85 large wind turbines
- enough to power about 63,500 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 126 m in 3.0 km. Here the river runs about 97 m below the lower rim of its valley.
What is around.
- 4viewpointsRuacana Falls and 3 more
- —waymarked walking routes
- —car parks
- —swimming spots
- 2picnic sites
- —toilets
- —information boards and visitor centres
- —bus stops within 1 km
- —other named waterfalls within 4 km
- —caves
- 2campsitesHippo Pools Community Camp, Tjonkuvi Otjiruwo Camp
- —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).
Towns nearby
- Ruacana21 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 | 35 | 34 | 32 | 32 | 31 | 29 | 29 | 32 | 36 | 38 | 37 | 36 |
| Night °C | 21 | 21 | 21 | 19 | 15 | 11 | 11 | 14 | 17 | 20 | 22 | 22 |
| Rain & snow (mm) | 137 | 124 | 132 | 30 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 16 | 43 | 82 |
| Wet days | 13 | 14 | 16 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 4 | 10 |
| Sun h/day | 9.4 | 8.8 | 8.7 | 9.6 | 10.6 | 10.5 | 10.5 | 10.3 | 10.3 | 10.3 | 10.2 | 10.1 |
Long-term averages 1991–2020 (NASA POWER) for a cell about 55 km wide, with temperatures carried to the height of the falls (851 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 | 73% | 128% | 56% | 108% | — | — | — | — | — | 48% | 42% | 37% |
| 2021 | 108% | 80% | 138% | 51% | — | — | — | — | — | 6% | 18% | 13% |
| 2022 | 39% | 93% | 139% | 277% | — | — | — | — | — | 34% | 30% | 25% |
| 2023 | 66% | 20% | 32% | 94% | — | — | — | — | — | 0% | 57% | 64% |
| 2024 | 48% | 54% | 23% | 8% | — | — | — | — | — | 0% | 25% | 29% |
| 2025 | 105% | 272% | 143% | 119% | — | — | — | — | — | 8% | 6% | 36% |
130% wetter than usual 70% drier than usual
Compare with the waterfalls nearby.
Ruacana Falls
Namibia
- 120 mHeight
- 216 m³/sAverage flow
- Jan–AprBest months
About these numbers
| Names, height, width, river | Wikidata (Q1101379) · 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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