Written By: Farah Vitale

Water has been pouring into Lake Tahoe recently from the storms this year. From Dec.9 to Dec. 11th, Lake Tahoe gained 8,690,131,707 gallons of water from one storm. That was just two days. Since Jan. 1 2017, Tahoe has gained 8.7 billion gallons of water. The lake levels have been rising since late 2016, when the storms initially started up. Lake Tahoe’s natural rim is 6,223 feet and on Dec. 11 the height rose up to 6,222.97 feet. You could fill 13,158 Olympic size swimming pools with that amount of water. The Lake’s level is 3 feet higher than last year, 6,225.2 feet.

Lake Tahoe’s volume is about 39 trillion gallons of water.

Lake Tahoe is the second deepest Lake in the United States. About half of Tahoe’s water comes from snow or rain falling directly on it. Water leaves the Lake mostly through the Truckee River but also 100 billion gallons reportedly evaporate from the lake every year. Evaporation rates for Lake Tahoe used to be determined by measuring from a four-foot diameter pan placed in Tahoe City near the lake’s outlet. The water in the pan would freeze during most of the year, so measurements were only made in warmer months. Researchers would use that info to determine an annual evaporation rate. They found that evaporation rates were actually different for Lake Forest than they were for Tahoe City. It is important to use accurate models to know just how much will be available for administrators to divvy up along the Truckee watershed. Research on this continues.

The rising lake level is great news for the drought problem in Nevada and Southern California. People living in Nevada and So. Cal. saw one of the worst drought seasons ever this last year. Since Nevadans have been dealing with crazy snow and flooding, mostly Californians are especially happy about the recent events.

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