Quick report
The snowpack looks quite different from what it did in 2025. The warm temperatures transformed a complex, layered snowpack into one that is moist, rounding, and showed minimal signs of instability. Previous weak surface forms are now wet or capped by a crust.
Most of the precipitation that fell in the Wenatchee Mountains from Jan. 2-3 fell as rain, so new snow accumulations were shallow. The winds were strong, and drifts were easy to find, but any shallow wind slabs were unreactive. We were able to find one small drift that produced short, stubborn cracks, but test slopes produced no results despite our efforts.
Weather
- Cloud Cover
- obscured
- Wind Loading
- moderate
- Recent Snowfall
- 4cm
- Snow Avail For Transport
- small smounts
Temperatures were mild, but the strong ridgeline winds made ridgelines feel quite chilly. The winds readily drifted around what little snow was available. Both the ridge and the valley were socked in clouds, leaving just a strip of middle elevations with good visibility and blue sky showing between the cloud decks.
Snowpack
Snow Surface Summary:
Below about 5400ft, surfaces were moist and soft, with very thin coverage that was insufficient for on-snow recreation. Above that, colder temperatures had lowered snow levels overnight, and some fresh snow had accumulated on melt-freeze crusts. These crusts weren't supportable and had a very thin ice lens on the surface with melt forms below at 6700ft.
Snowpack Summary
Snowprofile, 6700ft, E aspect
HS: 95cm
There is a new surface crust buried by 3-5cm of snow. This crust is 2cm thick with an ice lens on top, potentially from freezing rain. Below this crust, you can find buried surface hoar, but it is not likely to be a stability concern moving forward. The entire snowpack is moist and rounding, although the upper pack below the crust is still soft and increases in hardness with depth. The 12/24 crust is buried 16cm deep, the 12/18 crust is buried 33cm deep, and the December AR crust is buried 55cm deep. All these crusts were unremarkable in stability test results.
Snowpack Test Results
CT2 PC ↓6cm
ECTN ↓6cm