Abstract. Information on the amount and distribution of liquid water in the snowpack is important for forecasting wet snow avalanches and predicting melt-water run-off. Considerable spatial and temporal variations of snowpack wetness exist. Currently, available information relies mostly on point observations. Often, the snow wetness is estimated manually using a hand test. However, quantitative measures are also applied. We compare the hand test to quantitative measurements and investigate temporal and small-scale spatial aspects of the snowpack wetness. For this, the liquid water content was measured using dielectric methods, with the Snow Fork and Denoth wetness instrument in the Swiss Alps, mostly above tree-line. More than 12 000 water content measurements were observed on 30 days in 85 locations. The qualitative hand test provides an indication of snowpack wetness, although snowpack wetness is often over-estimated and quantitative water content measurements are more reliable. If the measured water content is very low, it is unclear if the snow is dry or contains small quantities of liquid water. In particular during the initial melt-phase, when the snowpack is only partially wet, it is important to consider spatial aspects when interpreting point observations. One measurement taken at a certain measurement depth may significantly deviate in 10–20% of the cases from snowpack wetness in the surrounding snow. Not surprisingly, diurnal changes in snowpack wetness are significant in layers close to the snow surface. At depth, changes were noted within the course of a day. From a single vertical profile, it was often unclear if these changes were due to the heterogeneous nature of water infiltration. Based on our observations, we propose to repeat three measurements at horizontal distances greater than 50 cm. This approach provides representative snow wetness information for horizontal distances up to 5 m. Further, we suggest a simplified classification scheme of snowpack wetness by introducing five wetness types of the snowpack incorporating both vertical and horizontal liquid water content distribution.