Northstar at Tahoe Resort
Northstar at Tahoe Resort is a ski area in United States, on slopes between roughly 2,351 and 2,351 m. Its mapped area is about 6.4 km across, with 125 marked runs and 20 lifts (about 83 km of piste in all).
Over the last twelve winters the ERA5 weather model gives it 390 cm of snowfall a season, 193rd of 3,069 worldwide and 32nd in the United States. It swings a lot from year to year: the biggest winter, 2022/23 (702 cm), brought more than 4 times as much as the leanest, 2014/15 (172 cm). December brings as much snow as January here (104 and 97 cm on average).
The nearest city of any size is Reno, about 41 km away.
Snow depth and the seven-day outlook appear here once snow starts to fall. Until then, the long-run record comes first.
Elevation range is estimated by sampling points across the ski area.
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.
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 straight line. Measured the same way, so the ranks compare directly. Ski areas a few kilometres apart share a weather grid cell and can return the same figure.
| Ski area | Distance | Seasonal snowfall | World rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Palisades Tahoe | 10 km | 477 cm | 92 |
| Palisades Tahoe Alpine Meadows | 14 km | 587 cm | 46 |
| Tahoe Donner Downhill Ski Area | 15 km | 519 cm | 79 |
| Sugar Bowl Resort | 17 km | 620 cm | 35 |
| Diamond Peak | 20 km | 296 cm | 496 |
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 96 cm, more than the median of 30 cm.
Winter by winter
Across the 12 winters measured, the average is 390 cm, and 7 of them fell short of it. The leanest was 2014/15 with 172 cm; the biggest was 2022/23 with 702 cm (4.1 times as much). For 33% of the 534 ski areas in the United States, the leanest winter was the same 2014/15: bad winters tend to hit a whole region at once.
Snowfall each winter (December–March total). The dashed line is the average; the numbers mark the leanest and the biggest winter.
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
The shape of the mountain
Which way the slopes face
72% 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
- Chairlift11
- Magic carpet6
- Gondola2
- Platter1
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.
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
Where it sits relative to nearby resorts. For a piste map, see the official site.
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.
Updated: 8 Oct 2026, 00:52