PNW Snowpack
Washington Snowpack 2/03/26 - Stations >5500ft (USDA- https://nwcc-apps.sc.egov.usda.gov/imap/)
Building off my previous blog post. I was curious about any trends in our Washington state snowpack at higher elevations. My gut feeling was that higher elevations had escaped the major pineapple express warming trends and still have decent snowpack. Unfortunately, there are not many snotel stations at higher elevations and weather can still vary greatly across the state, so this analysis may not be the best way to look at things, but here goes. The graphic above shows a snapshot of all of the snotel stations above 5500ft for Washington State (one is technically in NE OR). There are nine total sites above that elevation in roughly three different regions. Three sites in the N. Cascades, three in the mid to S. Cascades, and three in the N. Blue Mtns. I compiled the elevations and SWE percentages of each of these sites and tabulated them below:
Compiled from USDA NWCC on 2/03/2026
Looking at the data you can see a general trend of better snowpack at the higher elevations. The Blue mountains are doing considerably worse than the cascades this winter. It would be nice if there were a few more observation sites at higher elevations. Below is a plot of the data:
You can see that the snowpack generally gets somewhat closer to the median for this date at around 6000ft (based on the very approximate trendline). The Hart’s Pass site at 6490ft is well above the median. The graphic below shows the remainder of the snotel sites that are below 5500ft for comparison. You can see that there are still some sites in the northern cascades that are in the yellow and green (closer to median) so the snowpack overall is better there, but there is a bunch of red throughout the remainder of the state at the lower elevations, which is no surprise.
Washington Snowpack 2/03/26 - Stations <5500ft (USDA- https://nwcc-apps.sc.egov.usda.gov/imap/)
Probably nothing new in this analysis, but it was interesting to look at the data. Hopefully a few others might find it interesting. I wonder if there are good human snowpack historical observations on Mt. Rainier at higher elevations that could provide a bit more insight? The Paradise snotel site is only at 5150ft and is at 42% of the median. Thanks for reading.
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