Yosemite

One park contains a warm foothill summer, a cold-air-pooling valley and an alpine winter.

1890PARK SINCE

West-slope orographic precipitationValley cold-air poolingAlpine snow and lightning

Yosemite is a vertical weather system. Pacific storms climb the west slope and unload rain below the snow line, deep snow above it, and still more water on the high crest. Clear nights drain cold air into Yosemite Valley, while exposed granite above the rim heats hard by day and cools immediately after sunset. A valley forecast therefore cannot stand in for Tuolumne Meadows, and neither can stand in for a crest crossing.

1890National Park sinceDesignation year, not necessarily first protection.

1Weather regionThe terrain systems crossed by the park.

11.0–36.5″Reference-station rainAnnual range across the selected gauges.

78–98°FJuly mean highsThe heat range visible in the transect.

Official NPS conditions

California map locating Yosemite National Park.

Foothill heat through a 3,000-ft valley to the alpine crest. Highlighted frames are the atlas regions this park crosses.

The four seasons

THE PARK CHANGES VERTICALLY, TOO

Winter

Rain in the lower approaches, accumulating snow higher up, and frequent chain controls on the climbs between.

Spring

Waterfall season below while the high country remains snowbound; melt timing decides when the park reconnects east to west.

Summer

Hot afternoons in the foothills, cool nights in the valley and fast-building thunderstorms over the crest.

Autumn

Stable, dry weather can last deep into October, but the first cold system changes high-country travel in hours.

The climate transect

REFERENCE STATIONS · NOT A PARK-WIDE AVERAGE

These named gauges expose the park's temperature and precipitation gradient. They may sit outside the legal boundary; each linked place page states the exact NOAA station, its elevation and its distance. None is presented as a current park forecast.

NOAA/NCEI 1991–2020 monthly normals. See each place page for station provenance and any precipitation substitute.
Atlas reference	Terrain region	Elevation	Jan low	Jul high	Annual precip	Snow
Fresno	San Joaquin Valley	308	41°	98°	11.0″	—
Yosemite Valley	Sierra Nevada	3,966	28°	89°	36.5″	—
Mammoth Lakes	Sierra Nevada	7,880	17°	78°	23.7″	—

What changes the day

CLIMATE CONTEXT · NOT A LIVE WARNING FEED

Vertical forecast

Conditions at the valley floor and the alpine crest can differ by a season on the same day.

High water

Warm storms and rapid snowmelt both concentrate runoff into a narrow glacial valley.

Lightning

Exposed granite offers little shelter when summer convection forms over the crest.

For today's roads, trails, closures and alerts: this page supplies climate context only. Open Yosemite's official NPS conditions →

The terrain underneath it

GOLDEN STATE WEATHER REGIONS

Sierra NevadaA 400-mile granite wall, tilted west, that stores a third of California's water as snow.MOUNTAINS13,505 FT RELIEF

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