Home › Cities › United States › California › South Lake Tahoe › Tools › Climate zone
South Lake Tahoe has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate.
Mild, rainy winters and hot, dry summers — here's what that means in plain terms.
What this climate feels like
The four things a regular visitor actually wants to know:
Highs near 27°C in July. About 1 days a year above 32 °C.
Lows near −8°C in December. About 216 freezing nights a year.
About 520 mm of rain a year. Wettest in February.
More sun than cloud through the year.
What "warm-summer Mediterranean" means
Climate scientists sort every place on Earth into about 30 climate types, based on how hot, cold, wet and dry it is across the year. South Lake Tahoe's type — warm-summer mediterranean — sits in the broad family of mild, temperate climates.
Researchers write climate types as a short letter code. Here is what each letter means:
Cities with the same climate as South Lake Tahoe
A warm-summer Mediterranean climate (Csb) — these recognizable cities share it. If you know one of them, you know roughly what to expect.
South Lake Tahoe sits near a climate boundary
This city sits right on the line between warm-summer mediterranean and the next type along. Different climate maps file it on different sides of that line; the lived weather doesn't change at the line — it's a naming boundary, not a wall.
Has South Lake Tahoe's climate type changed?
Stable — South Lake Tahoe's climate has held the same type between the 1971–2000 and 1991–2020 normals. The label is steady; the climate beneath it is still warming.
What this climate means for you
Cool-season vegetables, stone fruit, berries and hops excel. Wine grapes do well at the warmer end.
Late spring through early autumn is the pristine window — warm, dry, sunny. Winter is wet but never brutal.
Comfortable year-round — sunny, dry summers and mild, wet winters. Heating is modest; AC is rarely necessary.
Where these numbers come from
The climate type and the month-by-month figures on this page are computed from South Lake Tahoe's measured 30-year climate normals (1991–2020) — the same official records behind South Lake Tahoe's main climate page, so the two always agree.
Long-range climate maps measure things slightly differently and can place a city in a neighbouring category. Where they differ, this page uses the measured station record as the climate today.
Methodology & sources
Temperature & precipitation — the official 1991–2020 climate normals from NOAA's U.S. Climate Normals, measured at S Lake Tahoe AP (NOAA GHCN station USW00093230), about 4 km from the city centre.