6.1.5 Degree of wetness and density, 1

You can get a quick sense of a snowpack's degree of wetness (its liquid water content) by doing a simple hand-based test that lets you characterize the snowpack as dry, moist, wet, very wet, or slush. Simply squeeze a handful of snow in your gloved hand and observe the amount of water present. Use this chart to determine the snow class.

Classification table showing the various degrees of wetness of snowpack samples.

A more accurate and formal way of assessing the water content of a layer is to first measure its density (mass per unit volume, for example, grams per cubic centimeter). This is done by cutting out a predetermined volume (chunk) of snow and weighing it.

The density is then converted to water content (snow-to-liquid ratio) by dividing the measured density by the density of water.