What a Winter of Snow Weighs on Your Driveway
Turning inches into tons
Fresh, fairly dry snow weighs about 6.24 pounds a cubic foot, the National Weather Service's ten inches of snow to one of water. Wet spring snow can weigh three times that. The median town here with a foot or more of snow gets 36 inches a year. Cleared off a one car driveway, that is about 2.8 tons a winter; off a two car driveway, 4.7 tons; off a long one, 8.4; off a rural lane, 13.1. One ten-inch storm on a two car driveway is about 2,600 pounds, all of it lifted and thrown.
Where the most snow is moved
The heaviest winters on a two car driveway are in Truckee, CA (26.9 tons), Steamboat Springs, CO (24.0 tons), Utica, NY (21.3 tons). The verdict calls anything under 3 tons a winter shovel work. The heaviest shovel towns, at the top of that range, are Zionsville, IN (2.9 tons), Whitestown, IN (2.9 tons), Las Vegas, NM (2.9 tons).
Shovelling and your heart
Shovelling heavy snow is hard work in the cold, and it is a known trigger for heart trouble. Push rather than lift where you can, take small loads, rest often, and stop if you feel chest pain or short of breath. If you should not shovel at all, the town page lets you say so: the answer moves up to a light cordless machine, and where even that means a two-stage machine every storm, to hiring help. For a two car driveway, that is 319 towns.
Related
How deep single storms get matters as much as the total; see why storm depth matters more than snowfall. Which machine handles that depth: single-stage or two-stage.