Do you need a snowblower in Greensboro, NC?
The machine for a Greensboro driveway
A shovel is enough
A normal winter drops about 0.9 tons of snow on this driveway in Greensboro, 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 Greensboro is light enough for one.
How much snow Greensboro gets
- Snow a year
- 7 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
- 5
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 Greensboro waiting a day is often a real option.
On a two car driveway that is about 0.9 tons of snow to move in a season, and a 10 inch storm weighs 2,600 pounds.
When the snow comes in Greensboro
- Nov0.1
- Dec1.2
- Jan2.9
- Feb2.0
- Mar0.9
Snow worth clearing runs from December to February, heaviest in January. Buy the shovel before the first fall, when stores still have them.
Towns near Greensboro
Greensboro is number 6 of 91 North Carolina towns here for snowfall; Boone gets the most at 26 inches.
| Town | Miles | Snow | Two car, paved |
|---|---|---|---|
| Summerfield, NC | 8 | 7 in | A shovel is enough |
| High Point, NC | 12 | 2 in | No snowblower |
| Kernersville, NC | 14 | 7 in | A shovel is enough |
| Archdale, NC | 15 | 2 in | No snowblower |
| Elon, NC | 18 | 2 in | No snowblower |
| Reidsville, NC | 19 | 7 in | A 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 Piedmont Triad International Airport, 6.7 miles from Greensboro. 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.