Nearly all of their time is spent underground in burrows of other animals or burrows they have constructed themselves. Occasionally they are found above ground on damp or humid nights. They often fall into window wells or are found in damp basements. I used to find many in window wells in Linn County. The only time they are found above ground in numbers are during heavy spring and fall rains while they migrate to and from overwintering sites.
Tiger salamanders breed in spring, often before all the ice has melted from the ponds surface.
Females may lay 30 - 50 eggs in loose masses. The larvae metamorphose between June and August. The larvae grow quicker in warmer water and may be smaller upon transformation then when they were larvae. The terrestrial adults overwinter underground in burrows or other debris in October. It is presumed that this increase reflects new localities for tiger salamanders, and not population size at a given locality.