Lake Tahoe
facts and information
laketahoefacts.htm
©
Copyright, 2011, R. Fleischer
Lake Tahoe, as viewed by Snowbum from a modest hill in Heavenly
Valley on a skiing day
Yes, Snowbum lives at Lake Tahoe..... at the South shore, actually.
Lake Tahoe is a substantial sized and quite deep NATURALLY
FORMED lake.
It is the 10th deepest lake in the
World, and the 2nd deepest in the USA.
The geographic center of Lake Tahoe is at: 39°06'30" N; 120°01'51" W.
The surrounding mountains vary from ~9,000' to nearly 11,000'.
The Lake's water, taken as a whole, is 99.994% pure (distilled
water is 99.998% pure).
The Lake contains ~39 trillion gallons.
In what follows, I have added corrections to the commonly published...and erroneous information about Lake Tahoe, ........the corrections are in BLUE.
More exact facts are available at http://tahoefacts.com
Lots of photos of Lake Tahoe are HERE:
http://tahoefacts.com/html/photo_gallery.html
The surface of the lake is at
approximately 6229 feet above sea level.
The average elevation of the Lake is 6225.1
feet above average sea level. The average depth
is 989 feet, the maximum
depth is 1645 feet, slightly in dispute. One survey by the
Federal Government, with a rather accurate instrument, measured
it at 1637 feet.
The clarity at the present time is about to 70 feet in depth.
The MAXIMUM surface temperature is
about 68°F, with the minimum about 41°F. After one
goes down just a few feet, the temperature is almost totally constant....and
perfectly so if deep enough.
The water temperature at the surface is about 40-50° in February
and March, and about 65-70° in August-September.
If one goes down to about 600 feet in depth, from that point
down, the temperature is always a constant 39°F.
Many drowning victims are never recovered from the Lake.
The cold water at lower depths preserves the bodies and prevents
the formation of enough quantity of gases to float the bodies to
the surface.
Lake Tahoe is fed by 63 streams; and 2 hot springs.
There is only ONE outlet.....at the Northwest part of the
lake, at the town of Tahoe City, where the Federal Watermaster
controls a rather small dam, the outlet of which supplies lots of
fun for rafters,
etc., as the water makes its way to Reno, Nevada.
The lake is relatively irregular in shape, that is, it is not
a clean round circle shape. Its general dimensions are a
length of 22 miles (21.2), width of 12 miles
(11.9), about 71 miles of
shoreline (75.1), of which ~42 are in California and
~29 in Nevada.
Yes, that is correct, the lake is bisected and part of it is in
both States. 5 Counties have a portion of the Lake, 2 in
California, and 3 in Nevada.
The surface area of the lake is about 193 square miles
(equivalent to about 122,000 acres).
Lake Tahoe has too many of various types of Agencies,
controlling it. One such, the Tahoe Regional Planning
Agency (TRPA) is particularly egregious to locals, and no one is
very happy with them, including
environmentalists, and everyone, really. TRPA
controls almost everything that has to do with building, and LOTS
more. I refuse to get started on a diatribe
here about them.
Lake Tahoe was formed about 2 million years ago by upheavals in the mountains surrounding it, and then, later, by glacier action.
Most questions about the Lake Tahoe region have to do with how
much snow we get, what the temperatures and weather patterns are
like....and how much water REALLY IS in the lake.
To answer THAT, first, there is enough water in Lake Tahoe, to
cover the entire State of Texas to about a foot, and would cover California
to 14-1/2 inches.
EVERY DAY, enough water EVAPORATES from Lake Tahoe to supply
3-1/2 million people. The figure is 1,400,000 TONS per day.
The Spring runoff causes the Lake to rise about 15 inches.
Lake Tahoe does not get a lot of rain, but does get a fair
amount of snow in the Winter. Snow has fallen in
EVERY month, but it is very unusual in the Summer.
Snowbum, that's me, has lived here since
1972. I have seen a lot of weather. June 17th is
Father's Day. One year we had 4 inches of snow on that day.
Most storms come in from the West, but occasionally we get a
quite cold storm coming from
the East, which typically drops very fine light fluffy snow, that
Powder Skiers LOVE. Due to the abundant sunshine and
relatively mild temperatures, even in the Winter, the snowpack,
if not fresh, can often turn
to rather a hard-pack, somewhat icy in the early morning hours,
and locals call that type of snow "Sierra Cement".
The skiers know that by mid-morning, skiing is great.
Spring skiing brings the skiers out earlier
in the day, and many then leave by, perhaps, 2pm, when things get
too slushy.
Lake Tahoe is surrounded by mountains. It is, for
practical purposes, a split, or opening, in the Sierra Nevada
Mountains. Typically, a storm is from Alaska, down the
Pacific, then comes onshore, and makes its way
towards Tahoe. The moisture-laden lower atmosphere rises as
it hits the WESTERN mountains surrounding the Lake, and the
rising causes the type of weather changes that encourages this
mass of air to drop copious
quantities of snow on the Eastern side of those Western
mountains. THUS, the western side of Lake Tahoe Basin gets
a lot more snow than the Eastern side, generally.
The storm then continues across the lake area, rises again over the eastern mountain area, and then drops down into the Carson City valley area, dropping more snow, but a LOT less.
The West summit, that Highway 50 comes to Tahoe through (from
Sacramento) is called Echo Summit. The 2nd greatest
snowfall in a 24 hour period was on January 4th, 1982, and was 67
inches.
Weather at Tahoe, in general, tends to be quite dry as far as
humidity goes, this is particularly so in Winter, but also in
Summer. Hot and sticky weather is relatively rare here.
The number of times, on average,
that this area gets 90°F weather is approximately twice a year.
A typical Winter here will have a total snow drop of 18 to 20
feet at Lake level. Obviously this is NOT the measured
amount at any one time! Almost all of the snow dropped here
will do so
over a 50 day period.
August is the warmest month, with the maximum temperature
about 79°F. With the low humidity, the weather is VERY
pleasant.
In September, the average is about 70°F during the daytime; in
October about 60°F.
January is the coldest month, with a maximum of 41°F, and a
minimum of 15°F. These are the AVERAGES.
On average, 232 days a year minimum temperatures (at night
typically!) are just about at the freezing point (32°F).
Zero degree days, while not overly rare, are also not overly
common...perhaps 8 such per year.
If you are really curious, you can get all sorts of
information, including photos from outer space (Shuttle), at:
http://blt.wr.usgs.gov/
© Copyright, 2011, R. Fleischer
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