SnowfallCheck

Do you need a snowblower in Garner, NC?

What clears snow in Garner

A shovel is enough

A normal winter drops about 0.6 tons of snow on this driveway in Garner, 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 Garner is light enough for one.

A normal Garner winter

Snow a year
5 in
Storms of 5 in or more
0.2 a winter
Storms of 10 in or more
about once every 10 winters
Days with snow on the ground
4

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 Garner waiting a day is often a real option.

On a two car driveway that is about 0.6 tons of snow to move in a season, and a 10 inch storm weighs 2,600 pounds.

When the snow comes in Garner

  1. Nov0.1
  2. Dec1.0
  3. Jan2.5
  4. Feb0.8
  5. Mar0.1

Snow worth clearing runs from December to January, heaviest in January. Buy the shovel before the first fall, when stores still have them.

Towns near Garner

Garner is number 25 of 91 North Carolina towns here for snowfall; Boone gets the most at 26 inches.

TownMilesSnowTwo car, paved
Knightdale, NC103 inA shovel is enough
Clayton, NC103 inA shovel is enough
Raleigh, NC105 inA shovel is enough
Fuquay-Varina, NC105 inA shovel is enough
Holly Springs, NC135 inA shovel is enough
Cary, NC135 inA 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 Raleigh State Univ, 8.4 miles from Garner. 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.