Learning Center Snow Survey Trips

Seeing is believing for power forecasters

Each winter PUD employees fly into the mountains high above Lake Chelan to check on the snowpack. The helicopter trips are done the last week of January, February and March to confirm readings that are transmitted daily from snow pillows.

The PUD team checks on three SNOTEL (SNOw Telemetry) sites at:

Park Creek Ridge, elevation 4,600 feet

Miners Ridge, elevation 6,200 feet

Lyman Lake, elevation 5,900

Measurements have been collected in the Lake Chelan drainage basin since the late 1920s, when crews on snowshoes would spend up to two weeks trekking from site to site. Now a helicopter makes it possible to cover the same ground in just hours.

Members of the PUD’s Energy, Planning and Trading department use the information gathered on the trips - along with historical data, weather forecasts and computer models – to create a runoff forecast for April through July.

The snow that melts and runs into Lake Chelan is important for generating electricity and for recreation that is vital to the economy of the communities along the lakeshore.