Due to its high elevation, Tahoe City has a dry-summer humid continental climate (Köppen Dsb) with dry summers featuring very warm days and cool nights, plus chilly winters with regular snowfall.

As a comparison, higher, colder, but drier Bodie has a mean maximum snow depth of only 32 inches or 0.81 metres – three-fifths that of Tahoe City.

The most snow on the ground has been 166 inches or 4.22 metres on March 20, 1952, and snow usually melts except in abnormally wet years during April; however there remained as much as 21 inches or 0.53 metres on the ground on average during May 1967 after a wet winter.

During summer, Tahoe City is generally dry; though thunderstorms may bring rain to the region.

As is typical for the region, summer days are very warm and sunny, but nights can be chilly and temperatures below 32 °F or 0 °C have occasionally been reported even in July and August: on July 1, 1975, the temperature fell as low as 22 °F (−5.6 °C).