Tahoe is brimming, nearly full for the first time in 11 years, and stunningly beautiful in all its blue-water glory.

The above gallery of images taken over the past month are ample proof.

Getting to this point took a lot of hard work on Mother Nature's part.

It started with a powerful and unrelenting series of blizzard blasts that coated the Northern Sierra this winter. Storms buried the Lake Tahoe area in snow, crippling transportation, shuttering ski resorts, knocking out power and disrupting the daily lives of thousands, as SFGATE reported previously.

In the first three weeks of January alone, the region received nearly a full winter's worth of snow. Then came February, and the Sierra Nevada was slammed yet again with moisture-packed chains of storms fueled by weather systems known as atmospheric rivers or the "Pineapple Express."

By winter's end, the Sierra snowpack was among the largest in recorded history.

And then the hot weather hit, the snow began to melt, sending water pouring down the mountainsides into the lake.

When the first heat wave of the season hit in mid-June, more than 12 billion gallons of water flowed into the lake in a single week. Between June 16-23, the lake level rose four inches.

That rise occurred despite increased evaporation rates from the lake's surface due to the intense heat. What's more, water managers have been releasing water from the lake into the Truckee River throughout the summer to make room for snowmelt runoff.

"It's not typical to spill at all," says U.S. District Court Water Master Chad Blanchard. "It's only on the big years when you have to release water."

To further understand the significance of a four-inch gain in a week, consider that during the spring snowmelt season in 2015, the lake only rose 2.5 inches over several months.

On July 9, the lake level peaked at 6,229 feet, a hair shy of 6,229.1 feet above sea level, the point when it reaches full capacity. The last time it reached near full capacity was 11 years ago.

This is a huge milestone for a body of water that flirted with record-low levels amid a five-year drought. In the years of low precipitation, Tahoe's level dropped, creating massive beaches. Boat docks sat high and dry on these vast swaths of parched earth.

This summer many of those low-lying areas that were uncovered are under water and the boats are bobbing in crystal blue waters again.

The lake peaked, and now its level is dropping slowly

Tahoe's water level is slowly going down by 0.12 to 0.24 inches a day.

Blanchard projected earlier in the year that the lake would completely fill right up to the brim, but says strong winds blowing across the lake this month increased evaporation.

"Tahoe is so sensitive to evaporation and because of the very large surface area there was a tremendous amount of loss due to evaporation," Blanchard says. "We didn't have quite as much as water we expected right at the end."

Now, the amount of water going into the lake is less than the amount of water going out.

No matter, the lake is gorgeous, and we hope readers will send in their photos showing the high water level for our gallery.

Email your photos of Lake Tahoe to agraff@sfgate.com.