United Kingdom Show cave
Smoo Cave
9 °C inside, all year.
Florian Fuchs · CC BY 3.0
The descent
The entrance, at 30 m.
The real relief above Smoo Cave, 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.
30m
Entrance altitude
from the 30 m relief model
9°C
Inside, all year
the yearly average outside, at the entrance
88m
Rock above
the highest point within 1.5 km
Inside and outside
9 °C inside, all year.
Deep inside, a cave keeps the average temperature of the year outside: about 9 °C here, in January and in August. In July the afternoon reaches 15 °C at the entrance, 6 °C warmer than inside: take a jacket.
- 7°4°Jan
- 6°4°Feb
- 7°4°Mar
- 9°6°Apr
- 11°7°May
- 13°10°Jun
- 15°12°Jul
- 15°12°Aug
- 14°11°Sep
- 12°9°Oct
- 9°7°Nov
- 8°5°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 in Highland, Scotland, UK
Smoo Cave is a show cave in United Kingdom. The entrance is at 30 m. It has stalactites and stalagmites. It is open to visitors.
Getting there.
- Show cave: open to visitorsHours in OpenStreetMap: 24/7
- Parking 90 m awaynearest car park in OpenStreetMap, straight line
- Viewpointsnearest viewpoint · 1.5 km from the entrance
- Wick John O'Groats Airport (WIC)nearest airport with scheduled flights · 95 km in a straight lineCar hire at KOI airport (Kirkwall, Orkney Islands)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.
- 14other cave entrances within 3 kmKraken Cavern, Antler Cave, Wetweather Cave and 11 more
- 3sinkholes within 3 kmAllt Smoo Upper Sink
- 1viewpoints within 3 km
- 11car parks within 2 km
- 3information boards and visitor centres within 3 km
- 8bus stops within 2 km
- 2campsites within 8 kmBalnakeil Motorhome Stopover, Sango Sands
- 10hotels and guesthouses within 8 kmLazy Crofter Bunkhouse/Hostel, Cape Wrath Hotel, Lazy Crofter and 7 more
- 4restaurants and cafés within 3 km
- springs within 2 km
- caving clubs and spots within 15 km
- marked hiking routes within 3 km
- climbing crags within 3 km
- named waterfalls within 4 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).
In our other atlases
What else is around Smoo Cave.
The river at the entrance, the waterfalls, the lakes, the mountains and volcanoes above, the canyons, beaches and islands nearby — from our other atlases.
Lakeyas1 lakes within 10 km
Peakyas1 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 | 7 | 6 | 7 | 9 | 11 | 13 | 15 | 15 | 14 | 12 | 9 | 8 |
| Afternoon | 7 | 6 | 7 | 9 | 11 | 13 | 15 | 15 | 14 | 12 | 9 | 8 |
| Night | 4 | 4 | 4 | 6 | 7 | 10 | 12 | 12 | 11 | 9 | 7 | 5 |
| Rain (mm) | 138 | 105 | 101 | 77 | 90 | 85 | 100 | 118 | 112 | 136 | 126 | 133 |
| Rainy days | 23 | 21 | 21 | 18 | 17 | 18 | 21 | 21 | 20 | 22 | 24 | 22 |
| Sun hours/day | 0.3 | 1.7 | 3.3 | 5.5 | 6.8 | 5.8 | 5.2 | 4.7 | 3.4 | 2.0 | 0.7 | 0.0 |
| Snow on the ground (cm) | 4 | 4 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Afternoon | Afternoon | Night | Rain (mm) | Sun hours/day | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan | 7 | 7 | 4 | 138 | 0.3 |
| Feb | 6 | 6 | 4 | 105 | 1.7 |
| Mar | 7 | 7 | 4 | 101 | 3.3 |
| Apr | 9 | 9 | 6 | 77 | 5.5 |
| May | 11 | 11 | 7 | 90 | 6.8 |
| Jun | 13 | 13 | 10 | 85 | 5.8 |
| Jul | 15 | 15 | 12 | 100 | 5.2 |
| Aug | 15 | 15 | 12 | 118 | 4.7 |
| Sep | 14 | 14 | 11 | 112 | 3.4 |
| Oct | 12 | 12 | 9 | 136 | 2.0 |
| Nov | 9 | 9 | 7 | 126 | 0.7 |
| Dec | 8 | 8 | 5 | 133 | 0.0 |
Averages 1991–2020 (NASA POWER) for a cell about 55 km wide, brought to the altitude of the entrance (30 m) with the standard lapse rate. Not a forecast.
Photographs
Inside and around.
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 | 93% | 189% | 104% | 47% | 107% | 148% | 100% | 51% | 118% | 147% | 111% | 112% |
| 2021 | 87% | 60% | 141% | 79% | 88% | 59% | 51% | 56% | 94% | 135% | 142% | 89% |
| 2022 | 100% | 151% | 28% | 145% | 125% | 78% | 102% | 55% | 81% | 81% | 104% | 112% |
| 2023 | 105% | 99% | 118% | 80% | 53% | 78% | 113% | 75% | 142% | 85% | 69% | 133% |
| 2024 | 92% | 108% | 69% | 124% | 64% | 122% | 89% | 132% | 54% | 78% | 77% | 161% |
| 2025 | 80% | 62% | 82% | 56% | 58% | 121% | 85% | 78% | 69% | 138% | 110% | 63% |
130% or more: wet month 70% or less: dry month
Caves nearby.
Smoo Cave
United Kingdom
- —Depth
- —Galleries
- 30 mEntrance altitude
- 9 °CInside, all year
High Pasture Cave
United Kingdom · 169 km
- —Depth
- —Galleries
- 50 mEntrance altitude
- 9 °CInside, all year
Fingal's Cave
United Kingdom · 256 km
- —Depth
- 1.1 kmGalleries
- 0 mEntrance altitude
- 10 °CInside, all year
King's Cave
United Kingdom · 340 km
- —Depth
- —Galleries
- 21 mEntrance altitude
- 10 °CInside, all year
Where these figures come from
| Name, type, published depth and length, visitors | Wikidata (Q947881) · 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?
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