Do you need a snowblower in Dallas, OR?
The machine for a Dallas driveway
A shovel is enough
A normal winter drops about 1.2 tons of snow on this driveway in Dallas, 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 Dallas is light enough for one.
A normal Dallas winter
- Snow a year
- 10 in
- Storms of 5 in or more
- 0.4 a winter
- Storms of 10 in or more
- about once every 5 winters
- Days with snow on the ground
- 1
Light, below most snowy cities. A typical snowy US city gets about 3.3 times as much. Most of it melts within a few days, so in Dallas waiting a day is often a real option.
On a two car driveway that is about 1.2 tons of snow to move in a season, and a 10 inch storm weighs 2,600 pounds.
When the snow comes in Dallas
- Nov0.5
- Dec3.6
- Jan2.6
- Feb1.8
- Mar1.1
Snow worth clearing runs from December to March, heaviest in December. Buy the shovel before the first fall, when stores still have them.
Towns near Dallas
Dallas is number 8 of 57 Oregon towns here for snowfall; Baker City gets the most at 79 inches.
| Town | Miles | Snow | Two car, paved |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monmouth, OR | 6 | 10 in | A shovel is enough |
| Independence, OR | 7 | 10 in | A shovel is enough |
| Salem, OR | 14 | 1 in | No snowblower |
| Keizer, OR | 15 | 1 in | No snowblower |
| McMinnville, OR | 21 | 13 in | A shovel is enough |
| Albany, OR | 23 | 3 in | No snowblower |
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 Falls City 2 SSW, 9.1 miles from Dallas. 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.
- Days with snow on the ground come from a second nearby station, because the closest one does not record snow depth.