Do you need a snowblower in Cincinnati, OH?
What clears snow in Cincinnati
A shovel is enough
A normal winter drops about 2.1 tons of snow on this driveway in Cincinnati, 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 Cincinnati is light enough for one.
How much snow Cincinnati gets
- Snow a year
- 16 in
- Storms of 5 in or more
- 0.4 a winter
- Storms of 10 in or more
- almost never
- Days with snow on the ground
- 27
Light, below most snowy cities. A typical snowy US city gets about 2.5 times as much. It tends to stay, so each storm lands on the last one.
On a two car driveway that is about 2.1 tons of snow to move in a season, and a 10 inch storm weighs 2,600 pounds.
When the snow comes in Cincinnati
- Oct0.3
- Nov0.2
- Dec2.6
- Jan6.0
- Feb4.3
- Mar2.4
- Apr0.2
Snow worth clearing runs from December to March, heaviest in January. Buy the shovel before the first fall, when stores still have them.
Cincinnati and its neighbours
Cincinnati is number 137 of 176 Ohio towns here for snowfall; Euclid gets the most at 114 inches.
| Town | Miles | Snow | Two car, paved |
|---|---|---|---|
| Norwood, OH | 3 | 16 in | A shovel is enough |
| Newport, KY | 4 | 16 in | A shovel is enough |
| Fort Thomas, KY | 5 | 16 in | A shovel is enough |
| Reading, OH | 7 | 16 in | A shovel is enough |
| Covington, KY | 7 | 23 in | Cordless single-stage |
| Erlanger, KY | 9 | 23 in | Cordless single-stage |
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 Cheviot, 6.4 miles from Cincinnati. 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.