Portugal Lava tube
Cavalum Caves
19 °C inside, all year.
Rockysantos · CC BY-SA 4.0
The descent
The entrance, at 157 m.
The real relief above Cavalum Caves, measured on the Copernicus model every 30 m, and the cave going down at the same vertical scale.
The depth is the one published by those who explored it; the shape of the galleries is a sketch, not a survey. No depth has been published for this cave yet.
157m
Entrance altitude
published (Wikidata)
19°C
Inside, all year
the yearly average outside, at the entrance
458m
Rock above
the highest point within 1.5 km
Inside and outside
19 °C inside, all year.
Deep inside, a cave keeps the average temperature of the year outside: about 19 °C here, in January and in August.
- 17°16°Jan
- 17°15°Feb
- 17°15°Mar
- 18°16°Apr
- 19°17°May
- 21°19°Jun
- 23°20°Jul
- 24°21°Aug
- 24°21°Sep
- 22°20°Oct
- 20°18°Nov
- 18°17°Dec
Outside: afternoon and night averages for 1991–2020 (NASA POWER) brought to the altitude of the entrance. Inside: the yearly average, which deep parts of a cave keep. Near the entrance it follows the weather a little.
Cave system in Madeira, Portugal
Cavalum Caves is a lava tube in Portugal. The entrance is at 157 m. It has the shape of a lava tube and several entrances and long galleries.
Getting there.
- Wild cave: only with caving equipmentNo paths or lights inside. Go only with a caving club or a qualified guide.
- Machiconearest town · 2.4 km in a straight line
- Viewpointsnearest viewpoint · 1.0 km from the entrance
- Cristiano Ronaldo International Airport (FNC)nearest airport with scheduled flights · 4 km in a straight lineCar hire at FNC airport (Funchal)Discover Cars · sponsored link↗
Plan the visit
Guided tours, a bed nearby, a car.
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.
From above.
The ground above the cave, with the relief shaded, the line of the section and what people have mapped around the entrance.
N
1.5 km
Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 (EOX, CC BY 4.0), 6.0 × 6.0 km, north up. The line is the section above. Points © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Around the entrance.
- 1other cave entrances within 3 kmFurnas do Cavalum
- 24viewpoints within 3 kmFrancisco Alvares Nóbrega, Boca do Risco, Pico do Furado and 21 more
- 7marked hiking routes within 3 kmPR 5 - Vereda das Funduras, Vereda da Levada do Caniçal, Vereda do Larano and 4 more
- 1climbing crags within 3 kmclimbing wall
- 1named waterfalls within 4 kmMadre d'Agua
- 50car parks within 2 km
- 1information boards and visitor centres within 3 km
- 100bus stops within 2 km
- 3campsites within 8 kmBoca do Risco, Chão do Pasto, Terreiros
- 65hotels and guesthouses within 8 kmQuinta de Santo António da Serra, White Water, A Quinta and 62 more
- 72restaurants and cafés within 3 km
- springs within 2 km
- sinkholes within 3 km
- caving clubs and spots within 15 km
Counted in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit, around the entrance. A low number may just mean nobody has mapped it yet. © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).
Towns nearby
- Machico2.4 km in a straight line
- Água de Pena3.5 km in a straight line
- Caniçal4.4 km in a straight line
- Santa Cruz5.0 km in a straight line
- Porto da Cruz5.9 km in a straight line
- Camacha8.2 km in a straight line
- Faial8.3 km in a straight line
- Caniço10 km in a straight line
In our other atlases
What else is around Cavalum Caves.
The river at the entrance, the waterfalls, the lakes, the mountains and volcanoes above, the canyons, beaches and islands nearby — from our other atlases.
Peakyas11 mountains within 10 kmFigures from the sister sites' databases (Wikidata, HydroATLAS, GeoNames, NOAA, OpenStreetMap). Links open when each site is online.
Month by month
The weather outside, at the entrance.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Afternoon | 17 | 17 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 21 | 23 | 24 | 24 | 22 | 20 | 18 |
| Afternoon | 17 | 17 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 21 | 23 | 24 | 24 | 22 | 20 | 18 |
| Night | 16 | 15 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 21 | 20 | 18 | 17 |
| Rain (mm) | 37 | 45 | 44 | 29 | 20 | 10 | 5 | 8 | 21 | 41 | 51 | 53 |
| Rainy days | 8 | 8 | 8 | 6 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 9 | 9 | 10 |
| Sun hours/day | 5.3 | 6.0 | 7.4 | 8.7 | 9.4 | 10.2 | 10.2 | 9.8 | 8.5 | 7.1 | 5.4 | 4.9 |
| Afternoon | Afternoon | Night | Rain (mm) | Sun hours/day | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan | 17 | 17 | 16 | 37 | 5.3 |
| Feb | 17 | 17 | 15 | 45 | 6.0 |
| Mar | 17 | 17 | 15 | 44 | 7.4 |
| Apr | 18 | 18 | 16 | 29 | 8.7 |
| May | 19 | 19 | 17 | 20 | 9.4 |
| Jun | 21 | 21 | 19 | 10 | 10.2 |
| Jul | 23 | 23 | 20 | 5 | 10.2 |
| Aug | 24 | 24 | 21 | 8 | 9.8 |
| Sep | 24 | 24 | 21 | 21 | 8.5 |
| Oct | 22 | 22 | 20 | 41 | 7.1 |
| Nov | 20 | 20 | 18 | 51 | 5.4 |
| Dec | 18 | 18 | 17 | 53 | 4.9 |
Averages 1991–2020 (NASA POWER) for a cell about 55 km wide, brought to the altitude of the entrance (157 m) with the standard lapse rate. Not a forecast.
Recent years
Wet years, dry years.
Rain of each month as a share of the 1991–2020 average. A dry year means a lower river and hotter rock; a wet one, more water in the gorge.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 14% | 48% | 27% | 115% | 55% | 233% | 64% | 44% | 217% | 99% | 91% | 47% |
| 2021 | 280% | 44% | 97% | 44% | 75% | 188% | 87% | 60% | 86% | 8% | 49% | 88% |
| 2022 | 118% | 78% | 60% | 134% | 55% | 21% | 170% | 162% | 133% | 161% | 20% | 109% |
| 2023 | 17% | 59% | 19% | 10% | 19% | 321% | 42% | 121% | 59% | 123% | 62% | 89% |
| 2024 | 137% | 96% | 62% | 40% | 81% | 112% | 36% | 77% | 17% | 56% | 147% | 151% |
| 2025 | 70% | 56% | 63% | 58% | 68% | 61% | 245% | 192% | 136% | 114% | 60% | 112% |
130% or more: wet month 70% or less: dry month
Caves nearby.
Cavalum Caves
Portugal
- —Depth
- —Galleries
- 157 mEntrance altitude
- 19 °CInside, all year
São Vicente Caves
Portugal · 25 km
- —Depth
- 1.0 kmGalleries
- 88 mEntrance altitude
- 19 °CInside, all year
Where these figures come from
| Name, type, published depth and length, visitors | Wikidata (Q10286653) · CC0 |
|---|---|
| The relief above, the entrance altitude, the section and the 3D model | Copernicus DEM GLO-30 · © DLR e.V., © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH, Copernicus/ESA |
| Climate | NASA POWER, 1991–2020 |
| Entrances, springs, sinkholes, opening hours and what is around | © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL |
| Images | EOX Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 · CC BY 4.0; Wikimedia Commons |
| Rivers, waterfalls, lakes, mountains, canyons, beaches and islands nearby | Coastya, Lakeyas, Peakyas, Cascadyas, Islandyas, Riveryas |
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, canyons, caves, dark skies, viewpoints, birdwatching or forests?
Same idea, other landscapes: field atlases built on open data, month by month, in seven languages.
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