Tahoe Facts
In its humble beginning, ancestral Lake Tahoe was a much smaller body of water in the southern and lowest part of the Tahoe Basin. The Basin was created two to three million years ago by downdropped blocks resulting from geologic faulting — the uplifted blocks creating the Carson Range to the east and the Sierra Nevada to the west. Approximately one million years ago, Lake Tahoe evolved to its current shape and size as glaciers scoured the land during the Ice Age.
• Maximum depth: 1,645 feet (2nd deepest in U.S.)
• Average depth: 1,000 feet
• Maximum diameter: 22 miles (north-south)
• Minimum diameter: 12 miles (east-west)
• Shoreline: 72 miles
• Average surface elevation (above sea level): 6,225 feet
• Lake Tahoe is two thirds in California and one third in Nevada
• There are 63 tributaries draining into Lake Tahoe with only 1 outlet at the Truckee River in Tahoe City
• Surface water temperature: 40 to 70 degrees Fahrenheit
• Below 600 to 700 feet, Tahoe’s water temperature remains a constant 39 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Highest peak: Freel Peak, 10,891 feet
• The sun shines at Lake Tahoe 75 percent of the year, or 274 days.
• At lake level, annual snowfall averages 125 inches. At alpine skiing elevations, the snowfall averages 250 to 425 inches each year.
• Snowfall has been recorded in every month of the year.
• Average annual snowfall: 250 to 425 inches -Courtesy Tahoe Traveler Magazine |