December is deep winter in Nevada's Great Basin north — the ranges snow-covered and the basins frozen — while the low Mojave around Las Vegas stays mild and crisp. Wintering eagles and waterfowl crowd the unfrozen water, and the long, dark, dry nights bring the brilliant Geminid meteors and the year's longest skies.
Week by week in December
December 3–9
- Christmas Bird Count season begins, with circles from Reno to Las Vegas tallying the winter birds.
- The ancient bristlecone pines on Wheeler Peak stand wind-burnished and snow-laden above the timberline.
- Las Vegas gardeners harvest cool-season greens and plant bare-root fruit trees and roses while dormant.
December 10–16
- The Geminid meteor shower peaks around December 14 — the year's best, throwing dozens of bright meteors an hour from a dark site.
- Bald and golden eagles hunt the rafts of ducks at the unfrozen Stillwater and Ruby Lake spring channels.
- Winter squash, storage onions, garlic, and apples hold for the holiday weeks as the south cuts fresh greens and citrus.
December 17–23
- The winter solstice brings the longest night; Orion climbs the south with the Orion Nebula glowing in his sword.
- Rough-legged hawks, harriers, and prairie falcons hunt the open snowy farmland around Fallon and the Carson Valley.
- The single-leaf piñon and Utah juniper hold the snowy pinyon-juniper woodland blue-green and gray across the Great Basin.
December 24–31
- The wintering eagles, swans, and waterfowl of the Lahontan Valley and the desert birds of the Mojave south make Nevada's year-end birding a highlight.
- On a rare warm Mojave afternoon, an overwintering painted lady or mourning cloak may flutter along a sheltered washes or riverbank.
- Local desert honey, storage squash, hardy greens, and southern citrus carry the year's last quiet markets through the holidays.
Birds This Month
December concentrates Nevada's wintering birds at the open water and the desert south. As the northern wetlands ice over, the warm-spring channels of the Lahontan Valley and Stillwater NWR and the spring-fed Ruby Lake NWR hold lingering tundra swans, common goldeneye, canvasbacks, and green-winged teal, while bald and golden eagles hunt the rafts of ducks and the jackrabbits across the snow. The open agricultural country around Fallon and the Carson Valley fills with rough-legged hawks, northern harriers, and prairie falcons.
The pinyon-juniper foothills host roving flocks of pinyon jays and Townsend's solitaires on the juniper berries, with mountain chickadees and irruptive finches at feeders. December is Christmas Bird Count season, with circles from Reno to Las Vegas tallying the winter birds. In the mild Mojave south, Gambel's quail, phainopepla, verdins, Anna's hummingbirds, and wintering ducks keep the Las Vegas valley and Henderson Bird Viewing Preserve busy through the season.
What's Blooming
December is the dormant heart of Nevada's year for flowers. Across the Great Basin north, the big sagebrush (the state flower) and rabbitbrush stand gray and bare under snow, their seed heads long shed, and the ranges and valleys are locked in cold. Nothing blooms in the frozen sagebrush sea.
In the mild Mojave south, the desert is never wholly bare: the evergreen creosote bush holds its resinous leaves and may carry a stray yellow flower in a warm spell, the desert mistletoe berries ripen sticky and red in the mesquite for the wintering phainopepla, and roadside London rocket and other winter-annual mustards green up the desert floor around Las Vegas and Red Rock Canyon — setting the stage for a spring bloom if the winter rains come. In Reno, Carson City, and Las Vegas gardens, only the earliest cultivated bulbs hint at the turning year. December is a month of foliage, seed, and structure, not flowers.
Garden This Month
December splits the Nevada garden by region as deeply as any month. In the cold Great Basin north — Reno, Carson, Elko, Ely — the garden rests under frost and snow: prune dormant apples, pears, and grapes on a mild dry day, check stored squash, onions, and garlic, protect the overwintering garlic mulch from drying winds, and plan and order frost-tough, short-season seed for the brief summer ahead. Clean, sharpen, and oil the tools through the quiet weeks.
In the mild Mojave south, the cool season carries on: Las Vegas and Pahrump gardeners harvest lettuce, spinach, kale, carrots, and broccoli, plant bare-root fruit trees and roses while dormant, and cover tender greens and citrus on the occasional hard-frost night. Statewide, water evergreens and new plantings deeply on a warm spell — Nevada's dry, cold winters desiccate roots even in dormancy, and a good December soak protects them through the deep cold.
Zone 6b (Pahrump & southern transition): a mild winter window — harvest cool-season crops under row cover, plant bare-root trees and asparagus, and finish dormant pruning before the early desert spring.
Zone 7a (Reno & western valleys; cold-pooled Carson Valley floors run colder): the garden rests under frost and snow. Plan and order short-season seed, check stored squash, onions, and garlic, prune dormant fruit on a mild dry day, and protect overwintering garlic mulch from drying winds.
Zone 9a (Las Vegas valley): the cool season holds. Harvest lettuce, spinach, kale, carrots, and broccoli, plant bare-root fruit trees and roses while dormant, and protect tender greens and citrus from the occasional hard frost under cover.
What's at the Farmers Market
December markets in Nevada are a quiet storage-and-greens affair for the holiday weeks. From the fall harvest, northern Nevada winter squash, storage onions, garlic, potatoes, carrots, beets, and apples hold well, and the mild Las Vegas-area farms and year-round southern markets keep cutting cool-season lettuces, spinach, kale, chard, and desert citrus through the season.
Local desert honey, farm eggs, dried chiles, beans, and grains, and seasonal greenery and wreaths fill the holiday stalls. Choose winter squash hard-skinned and heavy with a dry stem for long keeping; pick storage onions and garlic firm with tight papery skins and keep them cool, dark, and airy; select greens crisp and bright and refrigerate them damp. The Fallon cantaloupe, sweet corn, and field tomatoes of the warm months are a memory now — December is the pantry season for Nevada's markets, the harvest stored against the cold.
Night Sky This Month
December's longest nights and crystalline dry desert air make for some of Nevada's finest stargazing, for those who dress for the cold. The state's dark-sky country is unrivaled: the Massacre Rim International Dark Sky Sanctuary in the northwest and the basins around Tonopah rank among the darkest skies in the country, the desert beyond Las Vegas opens to brilliant stars within an hour, and Great Basin National Park's lower country offers superb winter skies though Wheeler Peak's high road closes with the snow.
The winter showpieces dominate: Orion climbs the southern sky with the Orion Nebula in his sword, his belt pointing to brilliant Sirius and the Pleiades, and the great winter hexagon wheels overhead. The faint winter Milky Way threads Auriga and Gemini. The Geminid meteor shower peaks around December 14 — the year's best and most reliable, throwing dozens of bright meteors an hour from a dark Nevada site. The winter solstice marks the longest night. The printable Nevada night-sky guide gives this year's planet positions and exact peak dates.
Butterflies & Pollinators
December is Nevada's quietest butterfly month, but the state's overwintering adults are not wholly gone. In the cold Great Basin north, the mourning cloak and California tortoiseshell wait out winter as adults tucked into cottonwood bark, woodpiles, and outbuildings along the Truckee and Carson rivers, and a rare warm thaw above 55°F might rouse one to patrol a sunny riverbank, though most days are far too cold.
In the milder Mojave south, a warm December afternoon around the Las Vegas valley and Red Rock Canyon can still bring out a painted lady, West Coast lady, or fiery skipper. The sagebrush-feeding Becker's white and the saltbush Mojave sootywing overwinter as pupae in the desert scrub, and the Great Basin wood-nymph rests as a tiny caterpillar in the bunchgrass. The high ranges are snowbound and empty. Leave the leaf litter, brush piles, and standing plants undisturbed through winter — they shelter the hibernators that will be Nevada's first fliers when spring returns.
Trees This Month
December hands Nevada's winter landscape entirely to the evergreens. Across the foothill pinyon-juniper woodland that covers more of the state than any other forest, the single-leaf piñon (the state tree) and Utah juniper hold their blue-green needles and gray foliage over the snow. High on Wheeler Peak in Great Basin National Park, the ancient Great Basin bristlecone pines — among the oldest living things on Earth, some nearly five thousand years old — stand wind-burnished and snow-laden above the timberline, with limber pine and Engelmann spruce in the high forest.
The deciduous trees stand bare, revealing their architecture: the broad gray limbs of Fremont cottonwood along the rivers, the white trunks of quaking aspen in the snowy canyons, and the reddening willows and water birch along the streams. In the southern Mojave, the spiky silhouettes of the Joshua tree, the green stems of palo verde, and the bare mesquite hung with red mistletoe stand stark against cold, clear desert nights — Nevada's winter trees a study in endurance and form.
Weather & Daylight
Across Nevada, a typical December day averages a high near 43°F and a low near 21°F, with about 1.1 inches of precipitation — statewide averages from the 1991–2020 U.S. climate normals.
Deep winter chill returns, bitter nights near 21 give way to short, cold mid-40s afternoons with steady light rain or flurries.
| Average high | 43°F |
|---|---|
| Average low | 21°F |
| Precipitation | 1.1 in |
| Sunrise (mid-month) | 6:56 PT |
| Sunset (mid-month) | 16:28 PT |
Figures are statewide averages over the 1991–2020 U.S. climate normals; local conditions vary with elevation and distance from the coast. Sunrise and sunset are computed for a midstate point on the 15th (PT).
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Same month elsewhere: December in New Hampshire · December in New Jersey · December in New Mexico