Do you need a snowblower in Athens, TN?
Your answer for Athens
A shovel is enough
A normal winter drops about 0.5 tons of snow on this driveway in Athens, spread over a few light falls. That is shovel work.
Get a wide plastic shovel with a bent handle before the first fall, and if you have a bad back, consider a cordless single-stage instead: the snow in Athens is light enough for one.
A normal Athens winter
- Snow a year
- 4 in
- Storms of 5 in or more
- 0.1 a winter
- Storms of 10 in or more
- almost never
- Days with snow on the ground
- 2
Light, below most snowy cities. A typical snowy US city gets about 10.0 times as much. Most of it melts within a few days, so in Athens waiting a day is often a real option.
On a two car driveway that is about 0.5 tons of snow to move in a season, and a 10 inch storm weighs 2,600 pounds.
When the snow comes in Athens
- Nov0.1
- Dec0.4
- Jan1.0
- Feb1.3
- Mar0.8
Snow worth clearing runs from January to February, heaviest in February. Buy the shovel before the first fall, when stores still have them.
Towns near Athens
Athens is number 30 of 65 Tennessee towns here for snowfall; Crossville gets the most at 14 inches.
| Town | Miles | Snow | Two car, paved |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cleveland, TN | 24 | 1 in | No snowblower |
| Lenoir City, TN | 31 | 4 in | A shovel is enough |
| Soddy-Daisy, TN | 35 | 4 in | A shovel is enough |
| Collegedale, TN | 37 | 4 in | A shovel is enough |
| Farragut, TN | 38 | 4 in | A shovel is enough |
| Oak Ridge, TN | 39 | 4 in | A shovel is enough |
Where these numbers come from
Read next: What a winter of snow weighs and Why storm depth matters more than snowfall.
NOAA 1991 to 2020 climate normals from Athens, 2.1 miles from Athens. 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.