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United States United States Waterfall

Wailua Falls

A 26 m drop.

When to go

Wailua Falls, Kauai
No machine-readable author provided. Caracas1830 assumed (based on copyright claims). · CC BY-SA 2.5

In numbers.

26m

Height

Dec–Mar

Best months

84m

Elevation

The water at Wailua Falls, month by month

It roars in March and in December.

The fullest months: March and December. The thinnest: from June to September.

  1. 64%Jan
  2. 68%Feb
  3. 100%Mar
  4. 64%Apr
  5. 37%May
  6. 22%Jun
  7. 18%Jul
  8. 20%Aug
  9. 24%Sep
  10. 42%Oct
  11. 58%Nov
  12. 79%Dec
high water best months to go

Best months to go, with plenty of water and pleasant days: from December to March.

Estimate from rain, snowmelt and evaporation month by month (NASA POWER, 1991–2020) around the falls. Dams upstream can change the real flow.

Waterfall along the river

Wailua Falls is a waterfall in United States. The water falls 26 m.

Read more on Wikipedia

Getting there.

Plan your visit

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How big is it?

How big it really is.

26 mWailua Falls1.8 ma person9.0 ma house56 mTower of Pisa

Height of the drop from Wikidata. Buildings and the person are drawn at the same scale.

Seen from the sky.

8 × 8 km of cloud-free satellite image, with what OpenStreetMap knows around the falls.

Wailua 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 South Fork Wailua River through the falls
50 m100 mWailua Falls-1.5 km-1 km-0.5 km0+0.5 km+1 km+1.5 km← 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 97 m in 3.6 km. Here the river runs about 39 m below the lower rim of its valley.

What is around.

  • 1viewpointsWailua Falls Overlook
  • —waymarked walking routes
  • 1car parks
  • —swimming spots
  • —picnic sites
  • —toilets
  • —information boards and visitor centres
  • —bus stops within 1 km
  • 3other named waterfalls within 4 kmKaholalele Falls, Uluwehi Falls, 'Opaeka'a Falls
  • —caves
  • 1campsitesLydgate Beach Park Camping
  • 8hotels, B&Bs and huts within 6 kmKauai Shores, an Aqua Hotel, Plantation Hale Suites, Aston Islander on the Beach and 5 more
  • —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

  • Wailua Homesteads3.9 km in a straight line
  • Wailua4.8 km in a straight line
  • Hanamā‘ulu5.6 km in a straight line
  • Lihue6.4 km in a straight line
  • Kapa‘a7.7 km in a straight line
  • Puhi7.9 km in a straight line
  • Anahola14 km in a straight line
  • Koloa17 km in a straight line

Weather

The weather, month by month.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Afternoon °C242324242526262727272624
Night °C222222222324252525252423
Rain & snow (mm)68841255749434147517684100
Wet days10101211989811121313
Sun h/day7.37.37.58.79.610.110.19.79.38.07.26.8

Long-term averages 1991–2020 (NASA POWER) for a cell about 55 km wide, with temperatures carried to the height of the falls (84 m) at −6.5 °C per 1,000 m. Not a forecast.

Photos

Through visitors' eyes.

2 11 Wailua Falls 2018-02-11 001-LR (39904718425)
James Abbott from New Westminster, B.C., Canada · CC BY 2.0
2021-10-08 08 33 20 View of Wailua Falls from the main overlook within Wailua River State Park in Kauai, Hawaii
Famartin · CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-10-08 08 33 26 View of Wailua Falls from the main overlook within Wailua River State Park in Kauai, Hawaii
Famartin · 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
2020132%53%205%84%76%59%131%82%47%132%86%35%
2021119%103%151%76%88%59%140%74%96%62%34%165%
202270%15%29%95%131%42%61%63%61%61%48%122%
2023124%211%79%75%78%25%28%10%26%27%61%42%
202452%22%32%63%81%22%25%32%21%24%23%10%
202549%13%18%91%19%47%46%24%32%31%44%66%

130% wetter than usual 70% drier than usual

About these numbers

Names, height, width, riverWikidata (Q4102427) · CC0
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.