Tahoe Donner Downhill Ski Area
No snow yet. Snow depth and the seven-day outlook appear here once snow starts to fall. Until then, the long-run record comes first.
- Elevation
- 2,070–2,219 m
- Across
- 1.2 km
We do not show a snow depth here. The weather model we use reports snow lying on the ground — it knows nothing about grooming or snowmaking, and it is not the base depth a ski area publishes. In Japan we can check our figures against 234 weather stations. Outside Japan there is nothing to check them against, so we do not print a number we have not verified.
Tahoe Donner Downhill Ski Area, in United States, runs from 2,070 m at the base to 2,219 m at the top. Its mapped area is about 1.2 km across, with 18 marked runs and 5 lifts (about 8.7 km of piste in all).
Over the last twelve winters the ERA5 weather model gives it 519 cm of snowfall a season, 79th of 3,069 worldwide and 18th in the United States. It swings a lot from year to year: the biggest winter, 2022/23 (966 cm), brought more than 5 times as much as the leanest, 2014/15 (172 cm). December brings as much snow as January here (132 and 129 cm on average).
The nearest city of any size is Reno, about 43 km away in a straight line.
How much snow it gets
Measured by us across 3,069 ski areas by one identical method. These are not the resort’s own published figures.
Compared with what is nearby
Within 50 km in a straight line. Ski areas in the same weather-model cell (about 30 km across) get the same figure.
| Ski area | Distance | Seasonal snowfall | World rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sugar Bowl Resort | 8.3 km | 620 cm | 35 |
| Northstar at Tahoe Resort | 15.0 km | 390 cm | 193 |
| Palisades Tahoe | 17.0 km | 477 cm | 92 |
| Palisades Tahoe Alpine Meadows | 22.0 km | 587 cm | 46 |
| Homewood Ski Area | 31.0 km | 576 cm | 49 |
Runs and lifts
Counted from the runs and lifts drawn on OpenStreetMap, within the boundary of the ski area. These are not the resort’s own published figures.
Run map
Slope shape, difficulty and lift types
The shape of the mountain
Which way the slopes face
81% of the vertical on the runs descends to the north or east. Those slopes get the least sun, so the snow lasts longer.
By difficulty
Lift types
- Magic carpet3
- Chairlift2
See past trail maps on Skimap.org ↗
Source: OpenSkiMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL 1.0). How finely ski areas are drawn varies by region, so treat the counts as indicative. Vertical is the difference between the highest and lowest points of the mapped runs and lifts.
When it falls, and how winters differ
Month by month
Month by month, the most snow falls in December. March brings 99% of January’s snowfall. That is a gentler fall than the median for ski areas in the United States (85%). In amount, March brings 128 cm, more than the median of 30 cm.
Winter by winter
Across the 12 winters measured, the average is 519 cm, and 8 of them fell short of it. The leanest was 2014/15 with 172 cm; the biggest was 2022/23 with 966 cm (5.6 times as much). For 33% of the 534 ski areas in the United States, the leanest winter was the same 2014/15.
Snowfall each winter (December–March total). The dashed line is the average; the numbers mark the leanest and the biggest winter.
Live cameras
This ski area does not put a camera on its own slopes. What follows are nearby cameras, not the pistes themselves.
Footage remains the copyright of each operator. JAPANSNOWLINE neither stores nor redistributes it.
Some cameras here are provided by Windy.com. Footage plays in Windy’s own player; we do not store it. Windy.com
Map
The weather map, and where it sits among nearby ski areas.
More places to look
Guides covering United States
- Which Famous Ski Resorts Actually Get the Most Snow? 24 Names, Measured Niseko is 526th in the world for snowfall. Zermatt is 554th, Jackson Hole 924th, Aspen 1,201st. Measured identically across 3,069 ski areas, the names everyone books and the places it actually snows turn out to be two different lists.
- A Black Run in Colorado and a Black Run in Austria Are Not the Same Thing. The Maps Prove It. Across 2,888 ski areas: 39% of American runs are graded advanced or harder, and 9% of Austrian ones. Nobody thinks Austria is four times gentler. The grades are measuring different things.
- Niseko vs Whistler: Whistler Is the Outlier, Vail Is the Rule Whistler is the world's 29th snowiest ski area. Vail is 1,335th — and 288 Japanese ski areas get more snow than the resort that defines American skiing.