Lake Tahoe is as long as the English Channel is wide, with the width of the
lake being half again as wide as San Francisco Bay.
With a surface area of only 193 square miles (70 of which are in Nevada) Lake
Tahoe contains 122,160,280 acre-feet of water, or over 30,000,000 more
acre-feet than the combined capacities of ten of the largest man-made
reservoirs in the United States.
The Panama Canal averages 700 feet in width and 50 feet in depth, yet such a
canal could be filled by Tahoe's water and extend completely around the earth
at the equator, with enough remaining in the lake to fill another channel of
the same width and depth running from San Francisco to New York.
The State of California would be completely covered to a depth of 141/2 inches
with one dispersion of Lake Tahoe's water, and Texans can pride themselves on
the fact that their extensive Lone Star State could only be covered to a depth
of 81/2 inches.
On an average, 1,400,000 tons of water evaporates from the surface of Tahoe
every 24 hours, yet this drops the lake level only one-tenth of an inch. The
total evaporation averages more per day than the water released through the
Truckee River dam outlet; for example, the maximum flow through the gates at
lake level of 6,227.56 feet amounts to 1,464 cubic feet per second. If water
that evaporates from the lake every 24 hours could be recovered, it would
supply the daily requirements of a population exceeding 3,500,000 people.
Lake Mead is backed up 227 miles by Hoover Dam into the Grand Canyon of the
Colorado and is considered on of the largest man-made lakes in the world. Tahoe
contains nearly four times the maximum capacity of Lake Mead.