SnowfallCheck

Do you need a snowblower in Kirkland, WA?

Your answer for Kirkland

A shovel is enough

A normal winter drops about 0.5 tons of snow on this driveway in Kirkland, 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 Kirkland is light enough for one.

A normal Kirkland winter

Snow a year
4 in
Storms of 5 in or more
0.1 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 Kirkland waiting a day is often a real option.

On a two car driveway that is about 0.5 tons of snow to move in a season, and a 10 inch storm weighs 2,600 pounds.

When the snow comes in Kirkland

  1. Nov0.2
  2. Dec1.7
  3. Jan0.9
  4. Feb1.0

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

Kirkland and its neighbours

Kirkland is number 51 of 91 Washington towns here for snowfall; Spokane gets the most at 45 inches.

TownMilesSnowTwo car, paved
Kenmore, WA44 inA shovel is enough
Redmond, WA44 inA shovel is enough
Woodinville, WA54 inA shovel is enough
Bothell, WA54 inA shovel is enough
Lake Forest Park, WA64 inA shovel is enough
Bellevue, WA74 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 Seattle Sand Pt Wsfo, 2.5 miles from Kirkland. 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.