Do you need a snowblower in Grass Valley, CA?
The machine for a Grass Valley driveway
A shovel is enough
A normal winter drops about 1.1 tons of snow on this driveway in Grass Valley, 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 Grass Valley is light enough for one.
How much snow Grass Valley gets
- Snow a year
- 9 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
- 2
Light, below most snowy cities. A typical snowy US city gets about 5.0 times as much. Most of it melts within a few days, so in Grass Valley waiting a day is often a real option.
On a two car driveway that is about 1.1 tons of snow to move in a season, and a 10 inch storm weighs 2,600 pounds.
When the snow comes in Grass Valley
- Nov0.2
- Dec1.2
- Jan0.7
- Feb3.0
- Mar3.0
- Apr0.5
Snow worth clearing runs from December to March, heaviest in February. Buy the shovel before the first fall, when stores still have them.
Grass Valley and its neighbours
Grass Valley is number 4 of 376 California towns here for snowfall; Truckee gets the most at 207 inches.
| Town | Miles | Snow | Two car, paved |
|---|---|---|---|
| Auburn, CA | 23 | 0 in | No snowblower |
| Lincoln, CA | 27 | 0 in | No snowblower |
| Marysville, CA | 29 | 0 in | No snowblower |
| Rocklin, CA | 30 | 0 in | No snowblower |
| Yuba City, CA | 32 | 0 in | No snowblower |
| Oroville, CA | 33 | 0 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 Grass Valley #2, 1.4 miles from Grass Valley. 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.