Lake Tahoe Surf Report: It's Firing This Weekend

The Lake Tahoe surf report is in, and I’m not talking about skiing or snowboarding. I’m talking about waves.

Every year a few times the stars (mainly the winds) align and create swells across the lake that are big enough to surf. The incoming late season snowstorm is shaping up to see winds at 100+ mph at the tops of the mountains.

The winds sweeping off the mountains onto the lake build the swell. While it’s not ideal conditions to be surfing in 40 mph winds, it’s about the only way you’ll be able to surf Tahoe.

Frigid waters, blustering winds, and snow. It’s going to be the perfect storm for surfing. Saturday is shaping up to be the windiest day, so the best day to try to surf.

When surfing Lake Tahoe it’s all about the wind speed, direction, and length of time it’s gliding across the water, also known as the fetch. It also helps that it’s one of the deepest lakes in the world where the swell has more time to build underwater.

So, in an ideal world, the best waves would be at the northernmost and southernmost parts of the lake if the wind is going north or south.

Looking at the wind reports, it looks like it will be going from south to north, so possibly ideal conditions for surfing Lake Tahoe on the north shore.

You can see here in this model that the winds are spiking Saturday morning in a northeasterly direction.

However, it can change quickly and so will the best spots if that’s the case. Meaning you might have to go on a bit of a wave hunt.

The winds may close the ski lifts, so Saturday might be the day to dust off the surfboard and see if you can catch some frosty waves.

It’s shaping up to be an all-time weekend for outdoor enthusiasts in the Lake Tahoe area. There’s not too many places in the world where you can surf a freshwater lake and then ski pow the next day, or the same day if you’re ambitious.