Current snow level, 5-day forecast, main peaks and ski resort status in Teide. Highest peak: Teide (3718 m).
| Peak | Elevation | Lat/Lon | Status vs snow level |
|---|
Mount Teide (3718 m) is the highest peak in Spain and the only one in the Canary Islands where snow is a regular winter phenomenon. The season runs November to April, peaking in February and March. The typical snow level is 2000-2400 m, conditioned by absolute altitude and low humidity from the subtropical inversion. Snowfalls are associated with cold troughs aloft with northerly flow, capable of penetrating above the cloud sea; intense episodes leave accumulations of 30-80 cm in the Las Canadas caldera (2300 m), with historical maxima close to 1.5 m in February 1988. No ski resorts or snow infrastructure exist, but road access (TF-21) attracts thousands of visitors during snowfall, forcing closures for safety and restricted access to Teide National Park. Avalanche risk is low. Snow plays an important ecological role: snowmelt recharges volcanic aquifers supplying the island and sustains endemic species such as the Teide violet, exclusive to elevations above 2400 m. Teide National Park has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2007.
Teide is the highest point in Spain and the only one on this list where snow is purely a matter of altitude, not latitude. At 3,715 metres, with Las Cañadas above 2,000, the depressions that brush the Canaries in winter leave snow on the summit several times a year, with the island at twenty degrees on the coast. The road into the park closes for ice more often than people outside the archipelago suppose.
Between December and March the 0 °C isotherm over Teide sits on average at 2,857 metres. With the summit at 3,715 metres, the summit sits above the snow level for practically the whole winter. Lower down it does not reach: in thirty years the level has almost never dropped below 2,000 metres, which is what sets this massif apart from any range on the mainland.
The coldest episode of the 30-year series was on 15 February 2014, with the level at 1,756 metres.
It is the underlying question in any range with a ski resort, and the series answers it. The mean winter snow level over Teide went from 2,855 metres in 1995-2004 to 2,916 metres in 2015-2024. That is 61 metres of rise, moderate but sustained.
The month with the lowest level is February. The curve rising towards summer says how long the season really lasts here.
| Mean level (m) | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Teide | 2,794 | 2,784 | 2,878 | 2,970 | 3,178 | 3,463 | 3,795 | 3,924 | 3,753 | 3,587 | 3,250 | 2,969 |
The snow level is the height at which the temperature crosses 0 °C. Here it comes from ERA5, the reanalysis produced by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, downloaded from the Copernicus Climate Data Store under a CC-BY licence: hourly temperature over Teide between 1995-01-01 and 2024-12-06, 30 complete years, extrapolated with the standard lapse rate of 6.5 °C per kilometre from the height of the model cell, which here is 632 metres.
Two caveats worth keeping in mind. The first is that ERA5 smooths the mountain: its cell represents 632 metres where the real summit reaches 3,715, so it describes the air mass well but not the specific terrain. The second is that what is computed is the 0 °C isotherm, which is the theoretical ceiling: snow usually starts to settle 200 to 300 metres below it, because the first flakes cool the air as they melt and pull the real level down. For going into the mountains, AEMET’s official forecast always takes precedence.
