Lake heatwaves, prolonged periods of hot surface water temperatures in lakes (Woolway, Jennings, et al., 2021), can have devastating impacts on aquatic ecosystems. Notable implications of lake heatwaves include severe algal blooms (Jöhnk et al., 2008), mass die-off events (Till et al., 2019), and changes to the community composition of microscopic algae (phytoplankton), which form the bases of aquatic food webs (Baker and Geider, 2021;Olalla et al., 2021;Rasconi et al., 2017). Over time, an increase in the exposure of lake ecosystems to hot temperature extremes may lead to an irreversible loss of species as has already been observed in the oceans due to the increased frequency of marine heatwaves (Cheung et al., 2021Smale et al., 2019Smith et al., 2021;Straub et al., 2019). Moreover, heatwaves can influence some of the many benefits that lakes provide to society, including the provision of safe water for drinking and irrigation, recreational use, and economic benefits, such as fisheries and tourism, with knock-on impacts on local economies. Despite a growing appreciation of their importance, scientific understanding of lake heatwaves is in its infancy (Woolway et al., 2021a(Woolway et al., , 2021b, particularly when compared to their atmospheric (