The Fascinating Reason Lake Tahoe Never Freezes Completely
The Sierra Nevada mountains in eastern California frequently get lots of snow, making it the perfect place for a winter getaway for cold-weather lovers. One particularly popular ski destination in the Sierra Nevadas is Lake Tahoe, but as cold as it gets in the surrounding mountains, this alpine lake itself isn't ever going to be frozen all the way over. It never fully freezes because of physics.
Lake Tahoe is 1,645 feet deep, making it the second-deepest lake in the U.S. (Crater Lake has the top spot). It's this depth that helps prevent it from freezing. As water at the surface cools, it becomes denser and so it sinks before it can freeze at the surface. The warmer water beneath it rises to the surface, and that continues until the entire depth of the lake has cycled through. A lake needs to be at 39.2 degrees Fahrenheit throughout before it can start freezing at the surface. With Lake Tahoe's depth, that just doesn't really happen.
Lake Tahoe absorbs a large amount of solar energy
There's also a massive amount of water in Lake Tahoe. It's 22 miles long and 12 miles across at its widest point, and with a lake of that size, it's able to absorb a lot of energy from the sun during the day, even during winter. Plus, with Tahoe's remarkably clear water thanks to a lack of algae, sunlight can penetrate deep into the waters; this is also what makes the lake so blue. The solar absorption makes it so that it can be warmer near the lake on winter mornings compared to the surrounding areas.
Granted, parts of the lake may freeze, like Emerald Bay, in the state park of the same name, and some of the smaller, shallower inlets. However, it will never freeze all the way across, so any visitor's dreams of ice skating on the lake itself will likely never come true. That said, you can still lace up your skates at Edgewood Tahoe. The hotel is right on the shore of the lake in Stateline, Nevada, and it has a delightful ice rink in winter. Edgewood Tahoe also offers high-end ski packages for travelers looking for the full experience.