A rare August snow shower in the Sierra Nevada Mountains prompted some of Lake Tahoe’s most popular ski resorts to announce their planned openings for the 2024-25 ski season.
Three Vail-owned resorts – Heavenly, Northstar and Kirkwood – announced their tentative opening dates Monday, pending sufficient snowfall. Heavenly and Northstar are slated for Friday, Nov. 22, while Kirkwood hopes to open on Friday, Dec. 6.
Palisades Tahoe is scheduled to open on Nov. 27, the day before Thanksgiving, agency officials said in a social media post last week.
Of course, these openings are dependent on conditions. The openings of the three Vail resorts were delayed by about a week last year due to warm temperatures and a lack of snow.
Last year didn’t see the record-breaking snowfall of the 2022-23 season, which saw a total of 753 inches, but there were heavy snowstorms in March and May. The ski season lasted well into April at most resorts, while Palisades Tahoe stayed open through Memorial Day weekend.
A storm in early March brought 10 feet of snow and winds of 189 miles per hour, while a rare storm on the first weekend of May brought 25 inches of snow, setting a new record for the month since weather records began in 1971.
For the season, Palisades reported 423 inches of snow at 8,000 feet elevation, the third-highest since 2018-19, when 652 inches fell. The 2022-23 season brought the most snow since the ski area began reporting snow measurements in 2000.
Over the weekend, Palisades reported its first August snowfall since 2004. However, the amount of snow was not measurable, according to the nearby Central Sierra Snow Laboratory at the University of California.
There was also snow on Mammoth Mountain and on the mountain peaks in Yosemite National Park.
