What to look for in nature in Nevada this January

Where can you see bald eagles in Nevada in January?

• Calving season in the Carson Valley

  Mostly January and February; some birds from December · Ranch country around Genoa, Minden and Gardnerville

  Ranchers in the Carson Valley calve in the dead of winter, and eagles come for the afterbirth and for calves that did not survive. Carson Valley’s tourism office says bald eagles, golden eagles, falcons and hawks gather there for the afterbirth from December to early February. Scan power poles and bare cottonwoods from public roads; the pastures are private. The valley’s Eagles and Agriculture weekend, run by the chamber of commerce, is held each winter in late January or early February (the 2026 edition ran February 5 to 8). The chamber had not announced its 2027 weekend when this page went up; check with the organizer at carsonvalleynv.org.

• Counting from boats on Lake Mead

  Every January · Lake Mead and Lake Mohave, especially the Overton Arm

  Lake Mead National Recreation Area has taken part in the national midwinter count since 1981, with a standardized method since 2001, and its eagles favor the Overton Arm, where the Virgin and Muddy rivers enter the lake. The park reports that its eagle counts rose sharply after 2009, with the largest numbers between December and February. From shore, try the coves and points near Overton on a calm morning.

• Lake Tahoe’s open water

  All month; the count is usually a weekday morning in early or mid January · Lakeshore from Incline Village and Sand Harbor to Zephyr Cove

  Tahoe stays open when smaller lakes freeze, so eagles fish it all winter. The Tahoe Institute for Natural Science runs a midwinter count from 26 lookouts around the basin, a tradition that began in 1979. The 2026 count fell on Friday, January 9, and for 2027 the institute’s page said only that registration would open soon. Birders of every level can volunteer.

What is pogonip, and why do Nevada valleys sit in freezing fog?

• How a valley fills with cold air

  Calm, clear spells between storms, mostly December and January · Truckee Meadows, Carson and Eagle valleys, the Humboldt River valley, Elko and Spring Creek

  After a storm leaves fresh snow or moist ground, a ridge of high pressure often parks over the Great Basin. On the long, clear nights the valley floor loses heat, the coldest and densest air drains off the slopes and pools at the bottom, and warmer air settles on top like a lid. That temperature inversion can hold for days. When the trapped air is near saturation and below freezing, fog forms out of tiny droplets that stay liquid well below 32 °F, and they freeze the instant they touch something solid.

• Rime and hoar frost

  Mornings during and after a fog event · Sagebrush, cottonwoods, rabbitbrush and fences on valley floors

  The feathery ice that coats everything after a pogonip is mostly rime, built from fog droplets freezing on contact, and it grows on the windward side of a twig in little spikes. Hoar frost forms differently, straight from water vapor on still, clear nights, as flat six-sided plates and needles. A hand lens on a frosted sagebrush often shows both. Go early, since sun or wind can strip it within an hour.

• When the lid traps smoke

  The burn-code season runs November 1 to February 28 · Washoe County, including Reno and Sparks

  The same lid holds down wood smoke and exhaust. Washoe County’s air quality managers post a daily color code from November through February: green means burning is fine, yellow asks residents to cut back, and red, called when an inversion is not expected to lift, bans wood burning for 24 hours or until the air improves. The code is posted at OurCleanAir.com.

How is Nevada’s snowpack measured, and why does January matter?

• A Reno professor’s snow tube

  Developed in the early 1900s · Mount Rose, above Reno

  James E. Church taught classics at the University of Nevada from 1901 to 1939, and he spent his weekends on Mount Rose, where he and friends built a summit observatory in 1906. To work out how much water lay in the snow, he designed a long metal tube with a toothed cutter at the bottom: push it down to the ground, pull out the core, and weigh it. Sources date the Mount Rose sampler to between 1906 and 1908, and in 1910 Church issued what has been called the first water supply forecast in the West, for the Lake Tahoe and Truckee River area, where lake-level disputes made it valuable. Surveyors across the West still use tubes of nearly the same design.

• Snow courses and SNOTEL

  Through winter and spring · Mountain ranges statewide, from the Carson Range to the Rubies and the Snake Range

  Today the Natural Resources Conservation Service runs Nevada’s snow survey. Crews still take hand measurements with snow tubes at snow courses, and automated SNOTEL stations report snow water content, snow depth, precipitation and temperature from the high country in near real time. The agency turns those numbers into water supply forecasts for farms, towns and reservoirs, and its Nevada Water Supply Outlook Reports come out each month from January through May.

• Out on the snow yourself

  Whenever there is enough snow · Great Basin National Park; Mount Rose Highway trailheads; Lamoille Canyon

  At Great Basin National Park the Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive closes to cars above Upper Lehman Creek Campground in winter but stays open to people on skis and snowshoes, and the trails are not groomed. Dig a small pit and look at the wall: each storm leaves a layer, and a crust marks a thaw or a windy spell. Keep off steep slopes; the Park Service says avalanches are frequent high in the Snake Range through winter and spring.

How do Nevada’s mammals get through the coldest month?

• White-tailed jackrabbits turn pale

  All winter · Sagebrush flats, grasslands and pastures in the north and center, and up into alpine country

  Nevada has two jackrabbits, and only one changes color. NDOW describes the white-tailed jackrabbit as the state’s largest rabbit and says its fur turns mostly white in winter, unlike the black-tailed jackrabbit of the lower deserts. Both are hares. They feed from dusk to dawn and spend the day pressed into a shallow scrape under a shrub called a form, trusting to stillness; if flushed, NDOW says, a white-tail bounds away in leaps of 12 to 20 feet at up to 35 miles an hour. In snow, look for the big, widely spaced sets of four prints, with the two long hind feet landing ahead of the front pair.

• Pikas living off their haystacks

  All winter, under the snow · High rock slides near alpine meadows, such as those in the Snake Range, Ruby Mountains and Carson Range

  The American pika, a six-ounce relative of rabbits, does not hibernate. NDOW notes that pikas spend summer cutting and storing plants for winter in haystacks tucked among the rocks, and a National Park Service brief explains that they then depend on a deep, insulating blanket of snow to survive cold temperatures while they eat their stores. That makes them sensitive to warm, thin-snow winters; in the Great Basin, researchers have found pikas gone from 44 percent of the sites where they were recorded within the last century or so. A sharp “meep” from a sunny talus slope can still give one away.

Which birds are worth looking for in Nevada’s mountains and towns in January?

• Rosy-finches in the high valleys

  Winter, especially after heavy snow · Northeastern and eastern Nevada; feeders in mountain towns

  The black rosy-finch nests among the highest peaks of the northern Great Basin, including the rock glacier below Wheeler Peak in Great Basin National Park and the high Ruby Mountains. Audubon notes that most move downhill in late fall, and that winter flocks turn up in high valleys and plateaus, sometimes in towns. Gray-crowned rosy-finches often travel with them. Look for dark, sparrow-sized birds with pink in the wings, wheeling over snowy fields.

• Great horned owls on eggs

  Courtship from December; eggs in midwinter · Old hawk or raven nests in cottonwoods and on cliff ledges, from Reno parks to the Las Vegas valley

  Few North American birds nest earlier. Pairs that hooted duets in December now settle on a nest, usually an old stick nest built by a hawk or raven. Audubon explains why they start so early: the young need their parents through the summer and into fall to learn to hunt, so the clock starts in midwinter. The eggs take about a month to hatch. Two ear tufts showing over a stick nest give the female away; watch from a distance.

Where can you see wintering ducks around Las Vegas in January?

• Henderson Bird Viewing Preserve

  Mornings, November to March for waterfowl · Henderson, southeast of Las Vegas

  Red Rock Audubon describes the preserve as nine ponds over about 140 acres, with a paved, wheelchair-accessible path roughly three-quarters of a mile long and binoculars to borrow. A local birding guide lists northern shovelers, northern pintails, green-winged and cinnamon teal and buffleheads among the winter regulars. Go early, since morning is the best time and the preserve keeps short winter hours; check the City of Henderson’s current hours before you go and sign in at the visitor center.

• Clark County Wetlands Park

  Daily; winter is the busiest season for ducks · East end of Tropicana Avenue, along the Las Vegas Wash

  The park follows the Las Vegas Wash, the channel that drains the valley toward Lake Mead. Red Rock Audubon lists two miles of concrete trails in the nature preserve, along with gravel side paths, ponds and a bird blind. The park’s own lesson sheet on winter ducks features ring-necked ducks and mallards, with American coots on the same water.

• Dabblers and divers

  Any visit · Big Weir Bridge at the Wetlands Park, or any pond

  A Wetlands Park lesson sheet for children sorts ducks into two groups. Dabblers, such as mallards and shovelers, tip bottoms-up to feed in the shallows and stand level on land because their legs sit near the middle of the body. Divers, such as ring-necked ducks, vanish completely underwater, and their legs sit far back, so they stand upright. Tally each kind from the bridge, then find the coots, which belong to the rail family.

Is there ice fishing in Nevada in January?

• Cave Lake

  Ice fishing is popular from December through March · Cave Lake State Park, southeast of Ely

  NDOW describes Cave Lake as a 32-acre reservoir with an average depth of 25 feet, stocked with rainbow and brown trout; the state record brown trout, at 27 pounds 5 ounces, came from here in 1984. The park also hosts the ice sculpture contest of Ely’s Fire and Ice Winter Festival (see the families section).

• Comins Lake

  Only when the ice allows; check NDOW’s reports · About 7 miles south of Ely

  Comins is one of the area’s ice-fishing standbys, but coverage can be patchy: NDOW’s update on January 9, 2026, found the lake only half covered, with most of the south end open water, and repeated a warning worth memorizing: “All ice should be considered unsafe.”

How cold and snowy is January in Nevada, and could El Niño change that?

How much daylight does Nevada gain in January?

What can you see in Nevada’s night sky in January?

• Quadrantid meteors

  Night of Sunday, January 3, into the morning of Monday, January 4 · Face northeast; the radiant climbs through the night

  Moonlight barely interferes this year, since only a slim crescent rises late in the night. The peak is short, roughly six hours, and forecasters differ on its timing; two published predictions put it at about 7:30 p.m. or 9:47 p.m. Pacific time on Sunday the 3rd. With the radiant low early on, Nevada’s best window is likely the hours just before Monday’s sunrise, when dozens per hour are possible from a dark site.

• Earth closest to the sun

  Saturday, January 2, at 6:33 p.m. Pacific time · Everywhere

  That evening the sun is only some 91.4 million miles away, its nearest for 2027. Nevada stays cold anyway, because a low winter sun, not distance, rules the season.

• The Wolf Moon, a supermoon

  Night of Thursday, January 21, into Friday, January 22 · Rising in the east-northeast at dusk on the 21st

  The moon is exactly full at 4:17 a.m. Pacific time on Friday the 22nd, about 14 hours after perigee, so this is 2027’s biggest and brightest full moon and a supermoon by every definition. Watch it rise on the 21st or the 22nd. A night later, on Saturday the 23rd, Jupiter and the bright star Regulus shine just beside it.

• Venus at dawn, Jupiter all night

  All month · Southeast before sunrise; east in the evening, high in the south by midnight

  Venus, at greatest western elongation on Sunday, January 3, is the dazzling point in the southeast at dawn. Jupiter, approaching its February opposition, rises in early evening and is up nearly all night in Leo. Saturn sinks lower in the southwest after dusk. Sharp eyes may catch Mercury hugging the west-southwest horizon in twilight as January ends.

What can families do outdoors in Nevada in January?

Safety notes for January in Nevada