Rwanda / Tanzania Waterfall

Rusumo Falls

A 15 m drop.

When to go

UWIMPUHWE Va · CC0

In numbers.

15m

Height

223m³/s

Average flow

estimate

Apr–May
Dec–Jan

Best months

33MW

Water power

estimate

The water at Rusumo Falls, month by month

It roars from March to May and from November to January.

The fullest months: from March to May and from November to January. The thinnest: from July to September.

380 m³/sJan
307 m³/sFeb
347 m³/sMar
409 m³/sApr
386 m³/sMay
267 m³/sJun
153 m³/sJul
112 m³/sAug
139 m³/sSep
221 m³/sOct
367 m³/sNov
401 m³/sDec

high water best months to go

From about 112 m³/s in the lowest month to 409 m³/s in the highest. Best months to go, with plenty of water and pleasant days: from April to May and from December to January.

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 Kagera river

Rusumo Falls is a waterfall in Rwanda. The water falls 15 m over a front 40 m wide.

Getting there.

Ngaranearest town · 22 km in a straight line
Parking 1,350 m awaynearest car park in OpenStreetMap, straight line
Kigali International Airport (KGL)nearest airport with scheduled flights · 85 km in a straight lineCar hire in KigaliDiscover Cars · Affiliate link
From April to May and from December to Januarybest months to go (estimate)

Plan your visit

Stay, explore and get there

Car hire in KigaliDiscover CarsSee

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.

33 MW

About 223 m³/s falling 15 m: the power of the water as it drops.

as much as 11 large wind turbines
enough to power about 8,200 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.

Rusumo Falls seen from above (Sentinel-2)

N 2 km

ParkingOther falls

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

The Akagera through the falls

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

Around the falls the river drops 24 m in 3.5 km. Here the river runs about 80 m below the lower rim of its valley.

What is around.

—viewpoints
—waymarked walking routes
2car parks
—swimming spots
—picnic sites
—toilets
—information boards and visitor centres
—bus stops within 1 km
1other named waterfalls within 4 kmRusumo Falls
—caves
—campsites
3hotels, B&Bs and huts within 6 kmHJ Guest House
2restaurants 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

Ngara22 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	28	28	28	26	27	27	28	29	29	28	26	27
Night °C	16	16	17	16	16	14	14	15	16	16	16	16
Rain & snow (mm)	111	100	151	164	100	30	18	35	64	117	180	124
Wet days	19	18	24	25	19	5	4	8	13	20	25	22
Sun h/day	5.9	6.2	5.8	5.6	6.6	7.5	8.2	7.2	6.6	5.9	5.1	5.4

Long-term averages 1991–2020 (NASA POWER) for a cell about 55 km wide, with temperatures carried to the height of the falls (1,288 m) at −6.5 °C per 1,000 m. Not a forecast.

Photos

Through visitors' eyes.

RusumoFalls1 — No machine-readable author provided. Amakuru assumed (based on copyright claims). · CC BY-SA 3.0

RusumoFalls2 — No machine-readable author provided. Amakuru assumed (based on copyright claims). · CC BY-SA 3.0

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.

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
2020	169%	215%	165%	163%	95%	160%	186%	53%	62%	143%	222%	129%
2021	256%	306%	59%	131%	92%	37%	38%	144%	340%	87%	109%	217%
2022	132%	348%	146%	95%	84%	77%	59%	718%	156%	72%	106%	120%
2023	59%	86%	105%	154%	72%	47%	3%	53%	132%	53%	154%	123%
2024	180%	104%	90%	126%	36%	13%	28%	23%	89%	162%	141%	122%
2025	73%	84%	67%	83%	95%	116%	63%	425%	35%	65%	44%	90%

130% wetter than usual 70% drier than usual

Compare with the waterfalls nearby.

Rusumo Falls

Rwanda

15 mHeight
223 m³/sAverage flow
Apr–May, Dec–JanBest months

Ndaba Rock

Rwanda

—Height
0.23 m³/sAverage flow
Apr–May, Nov–DecBest months

See the guide

Chutes de la Kagera

Burundi

80 mHeight
0.13 m³/sAverage flow
Dec–MarBest months

See the guide

Kisiizi Falls

Uganda

30 mHeight
2.6 m³/sAverage flow
Apr–May, Nov–DecBest months

See the guide

About these numbers

Names, height, width, river	Wikidata (Q959903) · 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.