SnowfallCheck

Do you need a snowblower in Ankeny, IA?

Your answer for Ankeny

Cordless single-stage

Plenty falls in Ankeny, about 3.2 tons a winter on this driveway, but it comes in shallow storms a small cordless machine can take in.

Before you buy, check the battery is rated to clear the whole driveway in one charge in the cold, or get a second battery. Batteries lose range below freezing.

What a Ankeny winter brings

Snow a year
25 in
Storms of 5 in or more
1.2 a winter
Storms of 10 in or more
almost never
Days with snow on the ground
52

Light, below most snowy cities. A typical snowy US city gets about 1.4 times as much. It tends to stay, so each storm lands on the last one.

On a two car driveway that is about 3.2 tons of snow to move in a season, and a 10 inch storm weighs 2,600 pounds.

When the snow comes in Ankeny

  1. Oct0.6
  2. Nov1.0
  3. Dec4.5
  4. Jan6.2
  5. Feb8.0
  6. Mar3.7
  7. Apr0.7

Snow worth clearing runs from November to March, heaviest in February. Start and service a machine in October.

Ankeny and its neighbours

Ankeny is number 36 of 41 Iowa towns here for snowfall; Mason City gets the most at 44 inches.

TownMilesSnowTwo car, paved
Johnston, IA738 inGas single-stage
Altoona, IA825 inCordless single-stage
Pleasant Hill, IA1037 inGas single-stage
Des Moines, IA1137 inGas single-stage
Grimes, IA1138 inGas single-stage
Urbandale, IA1138 inGas single-stage

Where these numbers come from

Read next: Snowblowers on a gravel driveway and Single-stage or two-stage.

NOAA 1991 to 2020 climate normals from Ankeny, 2.5 miles from Ankeny. A normal winter, not this winter's forecast. Snow is weighed at 6.24 pounds a cubic foot, fresh and fairly dry; wet spring snow can weigh three times that.