Will Tahoe Get Any More Real Snow This Year? Here's What Forecasters Say

With little snow in the forecast, California’s meager snowpack — at just 59% of normal for this time of year — could be in dire trouble. And that’s a big deal for winter sports enthusiasts who want to bag peaks or hit the slopes in Lake Tahoe this winter.

This winter hasn’t been a dry one, but it has been a tale of warm storms bringing rain, a few big cold winter systems dropping multiple feet of snow and then warm temperatures prematurely melting some of the cold white layer blanketing the Sierra Nevada.

“The full three-month period, winter 2026, was in fact record warm throughout a majority of the Sierra Nevada,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with UC Agriculture and Natural Resources, in Monday’s edition of his YouTube video series.

Jump straight to: 

• What’s the long-range snow forecast looking like?
• Where is the ‘best’ snow to be found right now?

For example, Tahoe City got its third-warmest winter since records began in 1909, said Justin Collins, a meteorologist with the weather service’s Reno Office.

Around Lake Tahoe, Swain described the area’s warm temperatures as “truly snow-eating” — meaning that much of the multiple feet of snow that fell in late February has already disappeared.

“Literally feet of the snow went away completely over the course of just a few days amid warm, moist and windy conditions,” Swain said.

What’s left of the snowpack in parts of the Sierra Nevada — especially along its northern ridges in places like Shasta — is more reminiscent of melt conditions that usually take place in a month or two later in spring, warned Swain.

“In some places, it looks very concerning,” he said.

Keep reading for what weather forecasters and ski resort staff say about what to expect from the rest of the season.

When is the next snow in the forecast for the Sierra?

Forecasters expect a minor cold front to move over the Sierra Nevada on Wednesday and Thursday, but said it will likely only dust the Sierra Nevada with a relatively paltry 2 inches of snow.

“Amounts with this front aren’t very impressive, unfortunately,” meteorologist Collins said. And after that, he said, “We do clear out all the way through the middle of the month” — likely meaning no new snow.

Collins said there is a slight chance another weak storm could hit the Sierra Nevada around March 12. But as of now, it’s too early to tell if it will move that far south.

Temperatures will likely warm up to above normal this weekend, said Kate Forrest, a meteorologist with the weather service’s Sacramento office.

She agreed that as of now, there’s nothing significant in the forecast that “would add to the current snowpack out there outside of the big February winter storm.”

What’s the snow quality right now in Tahoe?

For skiers heading to Tahoe, expect spring-like conditions, Palisades Tahoe spokesperson Patrick Lacey said. After last week’s rain, much of the fresh snow from the prior storm is now tamped down from the freezing and thawing cycle that happens each night and day up on the mountain.

The snow is, accordingly, “pretty compact,” he said.

While that might not sound appealing to some skiers, Lacey said these conditions produce “corn” snow, which some liken to “spring powder” — essentially a loose sun-baked (but not slushy) consistency that, for many people, “comes in second” after prized powder skiing, Lacey said.

Most importantly, this freeze-thaw cycle has the potential to elongate the ski season at Palisades, Lacey said. That’s because the condensed snowpack acts as a solid base that sticks around longer, even when temperatures get high during the day.

At Dodge Ridge ski resort in Pinecrest on Friday, temperatures were high, and the snow was slushy, according to Bing Xu, a Milpitas resident who helps moderate a Bay Area skiing forum on Facebook. But unlike some, Xu said he doesn’t mind a little slush compared to his ski experiences on the East — or “Ice” — Coast.

“It’s not the fastest,” he said. “But it’s soft, and it’s easy to dig your edges in.”

When it comes to slush, however, there’s a limit to what even Xu can take — so he left the mountain around 1:45 p.m., when he said the snow became too sticky to enjoy.

Xu is optimistic about his upcoming Tahoe trip with friends this weekend because temperatures this week have been lower than the last.

“I hope to ski at most of the resorts into mid-April,” he said. “And I hope Palisades can stay open till Memorial Day, but if it doesn’t snow again … I don’t know if they’re going to last until then.”

“I’m hoping for another storm — obviously, the more snow the better — but I don’t know,” he said. “It’s been such a weird year.”

How is the long-range snow forecast looking?

Over the next two weeks, Forrest said NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center is favoring above-normal temperatures and slightly below-average precipitation.

“It’s a bit difficult to give any specifics, but it does look like we’ll lean more on the drier and warmer side, at least heading into mid-March,” Forrest said. “We’ll just have to see if that is going to continue or if we’re going to get anything to shake up our weather pattern.”

After March 12, Collins said, the forecast gets a bit “messy” and forecast models “aren’t picking up too much” potential rain or snow.

“At least the way it looks right now, it looks pretty dry,” he said.

But still, Collins advised, forecasters can only confidently look into the future at a two-week time scale.

“So anything is possible as it stands right now,” he said. “But we can’t rule out any storms towards the end of the month.”

Even longer range, over the next three months, the center is also forecasting slightly above-average temperatures and below-average precipitation across the region.

How long will ski resorts stay open this season?

Ski resorts in the Tahoe area try to keep their lifts spinning as long as possible in the spring. But even so, many end their seasons mid-to-late April, depending on conditions.

Palisades Tahoe is one big exception: That resort tends to stay open all the way through Memorial Day in late May, and typically has the longest season of any Tahoe resort. Still, Lacey said, “we do kind of play it by ear,” and their closing date will depend entirely on conditions and demand.

But a resort being open doesn’t necessarily mean the whole mountain will be accessible to skiers and riders. While the two major storms over Christmas and in mid-February are sustaining the resort’s snowpack and allowing it to open nearly 90% of terrain at peak moments of the season, some of Palisades’ lifts, like Silverado, have yet to open due to a lack of coverage, Lacey said.

Give me hope: How long has the snow season lasted in previous years?

A typical snowpack can last through May or early June. But that depends on factors including just how many cold storms come through, snow depth, high temperatures and heat waves.

“Once it gets into late June, then that’s kind of the maximum range that we kind of see for the snowpack,” Collins said — given how warm temperatures and any rain can “eat away the snowpack.”

UC climate scientist Swain said that with the warm and dry forecast through at least mid-March, he expects the snowpack to start decreasing actively and for “the trend to essentially continue for the next couple of weeks.”

“It’s not as dire as elsewhere,” he said, “but also we do have a significant and worsening snow drought, even after the 5- or 6-foot snowstorm that some places saw later in February.”

What about the ‘Miracle Marches’ (or Aprils) of previous years?

The Sierra Nevada is a mountain range that deals in extremes.

This means it’s not out of the ordinary for the range to have super wet, very dry or mid-snow years — and yes, there have been many years when the Sierra’s transition to spring has also been its heaviest snow month.

“Miracle Marches” dot its history — 1991, 2016, 2018, 2023 and 2024. Even last winter was marked by late-season March snowstorms that brought the snowpack to nearly 100% for the third year in a row.

According to a 2025 study in the journal Environmental Research Communications, the term itself was “coined through public discourse” after the record-breaking March of 1991, in which the snowpack jumped from around 15% to 75% of average.

And while this year’s late February storms did boost the snowpack, it wasn’t enough to set the state up for a good water year when it comes to its frozen reservoir.

“The snowpack is in better shape than it was one month ago, but we only have a month left of our snow-accumulation season and time is rapidly running out to catch up,” said Andy Reising, manager of the state’s Snow Surveys and Water Supply Forecasting Unit, in a press release.

Still, Palisades’ Lacey is staying optimistic. He said March tends to be one of the snowiest months at the resort — and their blog currently still has Memorial Day as the target closing date.

Amid all this gloom, where can I find the best snow right now?

If you are planning to head to Tahoe-area resorts, Lacey suggests “following the sun as much as possible,” hitting south-facing slopes in the morning and north-facing ones in the afternoon to take advantage of the “corn” consistency as the slopes melt each day.

But those chasing higher snowpacks from the Bay Area might consider heading south. While Palisades reports its base at 40 inches deep, Mammoth Mountain in the Eastern Sierra has a snow depth of 76 inches to work with.

That’s because snow levels aren’t the same across the range. The northern part of the range is at 38%, the central part at 62% and the southern part at 82% of normal for this time of year.

Emily van Greuning, spokesperson for Mammoth Mountain, said 100% of the mountain is currently open and they’re planning to keep lifts spinning at least through Memorial Day.

Mammoth averages over 350 inches of snowfall a year, so it’s not uncommon for the resort to stay open late into spring and even summer, with historic closing dates as late as early August, she said. Last season, the mountain got 75 inches of snow in March alone.

But like every year, van Greuning said the closing date will depend mostly on Mother Nature.

“We have no idea what it’s going to bring,” she said. “It’s kind of day by day once we get to the end of the season.”