Lake Tahoe’s Emerald Bay completely freezes over for the first time in 30 years

The treasured landmark on the lake’s south-west shore gets icy, but has not over frozen over in years. Photograph: Courtesy of California State Parks

Amid an onslaught of intense winter storms that have hit California in recent weeks and sent record snow across the Sierra Nevada, Lake Tahoe’s Emerald Bay has frozen over for the first time in decades.

The bay, a treasured landmark on the lake’s south-west shore and popular destination, regularly gets icy during Tahoe’s chilly winters, but has not frozen completely in 30 years. Last week, as temperatures in the region fell below freezing, California state parks staff snowshoed in and found a thin layer of ice covering the bay.