The surface area of the lake is 191 square miles, spanning 72 miles of coastline, and is fed by 63 tributaries; nearly half the water entering the lake is from either direct rainfall or snowfall. Surface temperatures at the lake may be as low as low 40s during the winter, while water warms up to a scorching 65 during the summer. Water from rivers and streams flows into the Tahoe basin, slowly filling it several hundred feet above present levels.
More tectonic disruption occurred as a glacier washed away part of the basin, and subsequently, the volcano erupted, creating the natural dam of the present-day lake. Back in those days, fault lines in continental and oceanic plates dropped down like a freefall, creating the Tahoe Basin and surrounding Sierra Nevada and Carson mountain ranges.
Crystal Bay is the deepest section of Lake Tahoe, measuring 1,645 feet beneath Tahoes surface — a depth that would swallow up the Empire State Building. Lake Tahoe is the second-deepest U.S. lake and 16th-deepest lake in the world, measuring in at an extreme maximum depth of 501 meters (1,645 feet). Lake Tahoe is also the 5th-deepest lake in the world by average depth, measuring an average of 305 meters (1,000 feet). It is one of the worlds 20 oldest lakes, another interesting fact about Lake Tahoe considering the typical life span for freshwater lakes is between years and only thousands of years.
