Do you need a snowblower in Fort Payne, AL?
Your answer for Fort Payne
A shovel is enough
A normal winter drops about 0.7 tons of snow on this driveway in Fort Payne, 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 Fort Payne is light enough for one.
What a Fort Payne winter brings
- Snow a year
- 5 in
- Storms of 5 in or more
- 0.0 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 Fort Payne waiting a day is often a real option.
On a two car driveway that is about 0.7 tons of snow to move in a season, and a 10 inch storm weighs 2,600 pounds.
When the snow comes in Fort Payne
- Nov0.3
- Dec1.0
- Jan1.0
- Feb1.3
- Mar1.4
Snow worth clearing runs from December to March, heaviest in March. Buy the shovel before the first fall, when stores still have them.
Fort Payne and its neighbours
Fort Payne is the snowiest Alabama town here for snowfall.
| Town | Miles | Snow | Two car, paved |
|---|---|---|---|
| Scottsboro, AL | 24 | 1 in | No snowblower |
| Rome, GA | 32 | 0 in | No snowblower |
| Boaz, AL | 32 | 1 in | No snowblower |
| Albertville, AL | 33 | 1 in | No snowblower |
| Gadsden, AL | 36 | 0 in | No snowblower |
| Cedartown, GA | 39 | 1 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 Valley Head, 9.0 miles from Fort Payne. 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.