
In numbers.
18m³/s
Average flow
estimate
Jan–Apr
Best months
632m
Elevation
The water at Tinaroo Falls, month by month
It roars from February to March.
The fullest months: from February to March. The thinnest: from June to November.
- 32 m³/sJan
- 45 m³/sFeb
- 49 m³/sMar
- 33 m³/sApr
- 18 m³/sMay
- 9.3 m³/sJun
- 6.2 m³/sJul
- 4.2 m³/sAug
- 3.3 m³/sSep
- 4.5 m³/sOct
- 6.5 m³/sNov
- 14 m³/sDec
From about 3.3 m³/s in the lowest month to 49 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.
Getting there.
- Tolganearest town · 7.7 km in a straight line
- Parking 410 m awaynearest car park in OpenStreetMap, straight line
- Cairns International Airport (CNS)nearest airport with scheduled flights · 38 km in a straight lineCar hire at CNS airport (Cairns)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.
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 49 m in 3.6 km. Here the river runs about 39 m below the lower rim of its valley.
What is around.
- 4viewpointsTinaroo Dam and 3 more
- —waymarked walking routes
- 1car parks
- —swimming spots
- 2picnic sites
- 3toilets
- —information boards and visitor centres
- —bus stops within 1 km
- —other named waterfalls within 4 km
- —caves
- 7campsitesDownfall Creek Campground, Fong-On Bay Campground, Kauri Creek Campground and 4 more
- 1hotels, B&Bs and huts within 6 kmTinaroo Lake Resort
- —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
- Tolga7.7 km in a straight line
- Yungaburra12 km in a straight line
- Atherton14 km in a straight line
- Malanda22 km in a straight line
- Mareeba23 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 | 26 | 26 | 25 | 24 | 22 | 21 | 21 | 22 | 24 | 26 | 27 | 28 |
| Night °C | 21 | 21 | 20 | 18 | 16 | 15 | 14 | 14 | 15 | 17 | 19 | 20 |
| Rain & snow (mm) | 352 | 392 | 392 | 191 | 103 | 63 | 53 | 31 | 31 | 62 | 86 | 180 |
| Wet days | 24 | 23 | 22 | 20 | 16 | 11 | 10 | 8 | 6 | 9 | 12 | 18 |
| Sun h/day | 6.9 | 6.6 | 6.3 | 6.9 | 6.8 | 6.3 | 7.0 | 8.1 | 9.1 | 9.3 | 9.2 | 8.4 |
Long-term averages 1991–2020 (NASA POWER) for a cell about 55 km wide, with temperatures carried to the height of the falls (632 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 | 82% | 60% | 33% | 35% | 102% | 39% | 45% | 25% | 108% | 7% | 36% | 98% |
| 2021 | 144% | 69% | 47% | 187% | 37% | 70% | 60% | 112% | 60% | 11% | 106% | 79% |
| 2022 | 94% | 32% | 64% | 156% | 105% | 39% | 158% | 68% | 51% | 123% | 113% | 124% |
| 2023 | 114% | 93% | 67% | 47% | 25% | 58% | 154% | 176% | 103% | 31% | 11% | 231% |
| 2024 | 70% | 63% | 105% | 81% | 63% | 25% | 60% | 96% | 49% | 24% | 33% | 174% |
| 2025 | 68% | 80% | 106% | 23% | 61% | 18% | 25% | 20% | 326% | 76% | 62% | 134% |
130% wetter than usual 70% drier than usual
Compare with the waterfalls nearby.
About these numbers
| Names, height, width, river | Wikidata (Q38565) · 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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Same idea, other landscapes: field atlases built on open data, month by month, in seven languages.



