On February 17, 2026, an avalanche struck north of Lake Tahoe, California, killing nine people amid a heavy, multi-day snowstorm in the area. The media falsely blamed climate change for the event. Heavy snow is common in the mountains above Lake Tahoe during the winter as are avalanches. Sadly, deaths from avalanches are all too common as well.
Multiple media outlets jumped on the “climate change caused the deadly avalanche” bandwagon.
For example, Scientific American’s headline about the avalanche was titled, “Lake Tahoe avalanche explained by warm weather | Scientific American,“ In making a false causal connection between climate change and the avalanche, Scientific American wrote, “Many scientists expect rising temperatures from climate change to increase dangerous avalanches…”
“Avalanche risks remain high in California after deaths of skiers,” was the title of The Guardian’s story on the sad event, blaming the deaths on the “climate crisis.”
While NPR’s article about the avalanche asked, “Did climate change factor into the Lake Tahoe avalanche?, stating, “[a]s the climate warms, scientists are trying to better understand avalanche risks.”
The media response to California’s recent deadly avalanche is laid out plainly: weather was rebranded as climate crisis to support a narrative; yet no such connection between climate change and the recent avalanche exists.
Scientific American, The Guardian, NPR, and other media outlets, in a unified rapid response, framed the tragedy through the lens of global warming. The claim, implicit or explicit, is that rising temperatures and so-called “snow droughts” made the avalanche more likely. That framing is false, representing the media’s attempt to follow the example of flawed attribution studies that Climate Realism has debunked multiple times.
Avalanches are weather-driven events governed by snowpack structure, storm timing, temperature swings, and terrain. The media have presented no evidence of a long-term trend of increasing incidences of avalanches because no such trend exists. Absent such a trend, the Lake Tahoe avalanche can’t be honestly attributed to climate change.
The mainstream media lurch back and forth between differing claims about the prevalence and amount of snowfall the world can expect under global warming: from claims of snow disappearing to worsening snowstorms. For years, we have been told snowfall is disappearing, that warming winters mean the end of ski seasons, and that snow will soon be a relic. Yet heavy snow years continue to occur. The Sierra Nevada experienced record-breaking snowfall in the winter of 2016–2017, a season documented by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) station data. Snow in Sierra Nevada is not an anomaly. It is the norm.
NOAA’s long-term 1991–2020 climate normals for Truckee, California — available through NOAA’s U.S. Climate Normals dataset — show average January and February high temperatures in the low 40s Fahrenheit and lows well below freezing. That is a prime snow conditions period. Calling February snowfall delayed by a few weeks a “snow drought” ignores both climatology and history.
California gets snow every year. Some years, storms arrive early. Some years, they arrive late. That variability is precisely why climate is defined using 30-year baselines rather than single months.
Avalanches in the area are not new phenomena. For example, the March 31, 1982 Alpine Meadows avalanche near Lake Tahoe killed seven people, more than 40 years of climate change ago, when the average global temperatures was cooler. That event is further documented in historical reporting from the era and summarized in newspaper archival coverage, and the San Francisco Gate even made the comparison between the current avalanche and the 1982 event.
Avalanches require a very specific set of ingredients that have nothing to do with climate. According to the National Weather Service (NWS) and Powder Magazine, here are the key ingredients for a snow avalanche:
- Snowpack (Slab): A cohesive layer of snow, often called a slab, must exist.
- Steep Slope (Terrain): Avalanches generally occur on slopes with an angle between 25° and 50°, with the highest risk between 35° and 45°.
- Weak Layer: A buried layer of weak, loose snow that cannot support the weight of the slab above it. This can form from faceted snow, surface hoar (feathery crystals), or “up-side-down” snow (heavy snow on top of light snow).
- Trigger: The force that breaks the weak layer, causing the slab to slide. This can be natural (new snow, rapid warming, rain) or, in 90 percent of cases, caused by a person (skier, snowmobiler, hiker) dislodging the snowpack slab.
Contributing Factors:
- Weather: Heavy, rapid snowfall (which was occurring that day and often referred to as “loading” the slope), wind, and significant short-term temperature changes can create instability.
- Human Factor: The human element, such as poor decision-making or peer pressure, is often the ultimate trigger in backcountry incidents.
The setup for this tragic event was made clear, by the UC Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Lab in a social media post the day of the fateful avalanche:
That weather created the “snow loading” situation. The human factor (poor decision-making or peer pressure) put those people in the wrong place at a dangerous time.
The causes were clearly short-term and local, not long-term global climate change.
Even within the media coverage, contradictions appear. One outlet invokes a “snow drought” while quoting a meteorology professor stating the avalanche was “fairly typical for California’s Sierra Nevada” and not attributable to climate change. That alone demonstrates the leap from a single event to false long-term climate attribution.
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report (AR6), snow cover trends vary by region, with declines in some areas and substantial natural variability elsewhere. IPCC AR6 discusses snowpack cautiously, emphasizing regional differences and observational uncertainty. It has not found that avalanches are increasing in frequency or lethality due to climate change.
Long-term western U.S. snowpack data show significant year-to-year swings rather than a simple linear decline. NOAA’s historical station records accessible through its Climate Data Online system document winters with below-average snowfall followed by winters with record accumulation. That variability predates modern greenhouse gas concentration increases and continues today.
The broader issue is the media’s reflexive pivot to claims that specific weather events are proof of climate change. When drought strikes, it is climate change. When heavy rain falls, it’s climate change. When heavy snow falls, it is climate change. When there is little snow, it’s a “snow drought,” brought on by climate change. This elasticity ensures every outcome reinforces the same alarming narrative, but does a disservice to science. A theory should suggest conditions that can be tested and thus at least possibly disproven, not outcomes that are contradicted by other, diametrically opposed, projections or outcomes. A theory is not one based in science if it predicts multiple contradictory outcomes as possible.
The variety of headlines cataloged demonstrates something important: much of the media simply do not distinguish between atmospheric variability and long-term climate attribution. Instead, tragedy becomes narrative fuel.
Avalanches have been common throughout history in the broader region of the Western United States, long before greenhouse gas emissions began to rise, with some being much deadlier than the recent Lake Tahoe event. Snow still falls in the Sierra Nevada. Avalanches still occur in the Sierra Nevada. They occurred in 1982. They occurred in 2017. They occur today. In fact, they occur so often that the NWS has an avalanche forecast page for the Sierra Nevada region.
Declaring each avalanche is evidence of “climate collapse,” despite avalanches being common or at least not unusual, throughout history, even when temperatures were cooler and atmospheric greenhouse gas levels were lower, is not serious climate journalism. It is agenda-driven storytelling dressed up as science. The media are doing what the media all too often do, creating scary and engaging headlines that have no basis in fact. Perhaps this is why polls show trust in the media has fallen to new lows in recent months.
Anthony Watts is a senior fellow for environment and climate at The Heartland Institute. Watts has been in the weather business both in front of, and behind the camera as an on-air television meteorologist since 1978, and currently does daily radio forecasts. He has created weather graphics presentation systems for television, specialized weather instrumentation, as well as co-authored peer-reviewed papers on climate issues. He operates the most viewed website in the world on climate, the award-winning website wattsupwiththat.com.
Originally posted at ClimateREALISIM
and also conveniently leave off the “man made” preface to climate as if the two are the same – the climate has been changing since the beginning of time but man has nothing to do with it
‘Climate Change’ Caused the Deadly Lake Tahoe Avalanche.’
One minute children aren’t going to know what snow is and then the next minute climate change is causing avalanches.
Once upon a time we had the occasional storm etc. They have now been rebranded as extreme weather, and only the lightest of breezes lacks an official Met Office name in these ‘perilous times’.
Not Observing Always Armtwisting (NOAA) failed dismally with its hurricane forecast for 2025.
Above average? Er, no.
Failure to record and broadcast forecast accuracy is a societal problem.
Meteorology researcher Cliff Mass explained cause of severe weather events near midwet coast in 2021 – hot June, very wet November.
In my evaluation it’s a stackup vs offset phenomenon of different factors.
People forget – flapping about 80F temperature for example when in my many decades on the midwet coast I remember several years of that. (Especially memorable for me as humidity is unpleasant at that temperature whereas it is not normally noticeable there. Unlike NYC in August. Winds do help when they come.)
“[a]s the climate warms, scientists are trying to better understand avalanche risks.”
Simple extrapolation would suggest that you would still have avalanches, only they would be farther north. The mountains in that area don’t get any higher, so heavy snow would simply be more common at the same elevations to the north. Are avalanches more common now in British Colombia? Why is it still snowing at all at the latitude of California?
Because California is least likely to admit climate errors and most easily duped population.
Sometimes you just have to stop and use the F-word.
Though we have had a weak snow year in the Wasatch of Utah, there have been several avalanche deaths this season. They have been shelling the mountains with artillery to reduce the risk to skiers for many decades, even back when the ice age was coming in the 70s.
It must be comforting to be able to take complexity and reduce it to simplicity, as the climate cult does.
Well stated, Mark. My metric also is “shelling the mountains with artillery.” I live in Midway, Utah. I wake up to the distinct sound of “shelling” regularly in the winter months. And that includes this “weak snow year in the Wasatch”.
Just curious but what sort of shelling?
I don’t know what the folks above can hear. However, in Washington State there used to be . . . well, see here:
https://komonews.com/news/local/wsdot-no-longer-using-artillery-avalanche-control-i-90-snoqualmie-pass-now-remote-system-faster-safer
The person mentioned in that article, John Stimberis, was a student in one of my wife’s geography classes my years ago at Central Washington University.
I think it’s still 105mm Howitzers towed behind a trucks on the canyon roads below the ski resorts. They shoot dangerous-looking snow pack, high up above the ski areas, early in the morning hours, well before the ski lifts open for the day.
I know that in Little Cottonwood Canyon they have raised platform mounts for the guns.
Some sort of Howitzer, I believe.
Some use an actual field gun like a Howitzer, others drop bags of explosive from helicopters with a timed fuse actuated just before releasing it.
https://www.facebook.com/BuzzFeedVideo/videos/causing-avalanches-on-purpose/225109259781632/
Nice post Anthony.
Then according to the climate alarmists, the lovely weather we are having here in Palm Springs, CA [while enjoying the Indian Wells tennis tourny] must also be due to “Climate Change”.
Physicists have been looking for TOE [theory of everything] for decades, but have been scooped by the climate crowd since apparently CC causes everything! Hot/Cold/Wet/Dry – Amazing!
When is Michael Mann gonna let us know how to quantize gravity? Bet he’s having trouble splicing the two fields together for his headline graph. Lol [sarc/ !]
LOL. His Mann-o-matic calculator is busted.
Mann-o-mania?
Earthquakes can cause avalanches.
Sonic disturbances also can cause avalanches.
Of course for both of those, the conditions need to be optimum for an avalanche.
Both of those are not the root cause, but rather the trigger.
Most are caused by too much snow at to great an angle relative to the horizon.
Quite true. But my post was about the triggers.
And the “trigger” is not now and never has been Man’s CO2.
There have always been “snow drifts”. They are not stable. They are not made of concrete. They are not made of the packed snow that igloos are made from.
“Snow drifts” on the side of a mountain? It doesn’t take much for it to lose its stability.
Most are caused by too much snow at too great an angle relative to the horizon.
Back when I was a skier, many ski areas had cannons. When there was an avalanche risk in the area, they would shoot the cannon at the snow pack to trigger small avalanches before the material for a big one accumulated.
Do they still do that?
Yep! Every year, here in the Wasatch back country.
Sort of a “controlled burn” to prevent an uncontrolled burn?
The climate change deadender alarmists are firing off their last missiles in desperate acts.
Yuh, like the Iranians.
Definition of avalanche: a mountain getting its rocks off. 🙂
That joked passed through my ‘hood when I was a kid in the early ’60s.
Avalanches are snow joke
(I’ll get my coat)
Did your Dad tell you that joke? 😎
On March 1, 1910, two trains were buried by a massive avalanche in Wellington, Washington, resulting in the deaths of 96 people. The avalanche was triggered by a combination of heavy snowfall and a thunderstorm, which caused the snow to slide down from Windy Mountain.
So says the internet.
(A long tunnel was completed in 1929.)
Nice synopsis regarding the mechanics of avalanches and the non-connection to climate “change.”
Unfortunately an avalanche with 9 victims is to great of an opportunity from too many writer’s perspective. As Rahm Emanuel claimed, let no crisis go to waste.
The miracle that 6 survived is in my opinion worth noting.
“through the lens of global warming”
I can envision a book with this title in about 20 years.
Not just media, but much else is suffering through this view.
This is opposite the rose-colored glasses syndrome.
Green is harder to see through (lens) than rose.
A future Sci-Fi novel?
Let me know when the media doesn’t attribute on natural disaster to human-induced climate change. The next one will be the first.
Actually, it’s gravity that causes avalanches. I thought this was common knowledge.
But since global warming causes less snow and children soon won’t know what snow is, the number of avalanches must be destined to go down.
Unless climate change also increases the force of gravity.
There’s definitely an argument that warmer air masses can and do produce heavier snow fall.
Warm air carries more moisture, so when it meets colder mountain air at altitude, this is actually the perfect snowmaker. I would imagine that the Sierras are perfectly located for this very phenomenon.
The other factor worth considering is how wet or dry the snow is. Cold, dry snow that is blown by the wind will certainly create windslab. Equally, wetter, warmer snow can create wet slab. Wet slab avalanches are heavier and can be much more destructive, if you they build up enough momentum. However, if the temperature drops after a heavy fall of wet snow pack, this will freeze and create a very stable snowpack. This won’t be triggered by anything, until there’s a significant rise in temperature.
It’s a very complex area and influenced by several factors. However, it’s not completely without merit to propose that a warming climate would potentially create higher avalanche risk in some locations.
Avalanches are caused by winter, something we were told wasn’t going to be a thing anymore. They should be happy.
Indeed, avalanches are common in mountainous southern BC and adjacent part of Rocky Mountains that are in Alberta.
They typically occur when a fresh layer of snow falls onto an old layer tat does not provide much friction.
Occurrence frequency and area vary considerably from year to year, and month to month as it depends on weather – temperature variation and amount of snowfall.
BC actively triggers avalanches near highways before they would be large enough to overrun highway. Traditional method is Army gun, you may see a raised platform along a highway to place gun on. Newer methods are dropping explosive from helicopter, and IIRC a tower that fires some kind of explosive or energy ray (erected in areas of frequent need).
People die regularly, while skiing or charging up a slope with snowmobile.
(For guided skiing in back country, such as helicopter or snowcat, you must have a locator beacon to help others find you before suffocation. Poles are shoved into avalanche mess to locate hard things like your body.)
You may see gun platforms in WA, ID, and MT as well
More likely this than climate change.