Did Lake Tahoe get 17 feet of snow?

Lake Tahoe sees over 17 feet of snow in December, crushing records. This record snow came after a year of extreme heat and drought. Following a year of both extreme heat and drought, Lake Tahoe has seen a record-breaking amount of snow this December, according to the U.C. Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Lab.



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– Lake Tahoe tourism officials were surprised, and a bit miffed, when a respected international travel guide put the iconic alpine lake straddling the California-Nevada line on its list of places to stay away from this year because of the harmful ecological effects of overtourism.

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SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. — Experts say it won't freeze this year and likely never has in human memory. That's because Lake Tahoe is deep — very deep. At 1,645 feet, it is the second-deepest lake in the United States. Before a lake can freeze, the water from top to bottom has to lose heat built up in the warmer months.

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While past years have seen some declines in Lake Tahoe's water clarity, the TMDL Program has helped stabilize these levels. In 2022, Lake Tahoe's water clarity was measured at a depth of 72 feet – almost 11 feet deeper than the 2021 recording.

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Professional divers with the Undersea Voyager Project have made 58 submarine trips and 33 scuba dives to the bottom of the lake and smaller adjacent lakes. So far, their discoveries include a diamond ring, possible ship wreckage, and over 25,000 pounds of trash.

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Its deepest points are in Crystal Bay at 1,637 ft (499 m) and off Rubicon Point (1,645 ft, 501 m). Surface lake temperatures range from 68 ° F in the summer, to 41 ° F during the winter. The only outlet is the Truckee River at Tahoe City.

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Since 1950, development of homes, hotels, casinos, ski resorts and urban infrastructure has increased the amounts of sediment entering the lake, causing algae growth and reducing the lake's clarity.

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First of all, Lake Tahoe's only natural outlet, the Truckee River, carries water into Nevada, not California, where it terminates at Pyramid Lake. This means there are no legal water rights to use Tahoe water in California, aside from a few local uses along the river's path to Nevada.

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The surface water ranges from 40 degrees in winter to about 70 in summer. With that being said, July on average has the warmest waters. This is followed by August and September where they fluctuate between 65-70 degrees.

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