Do you need a snowblower in La Grande, OR?
The machine for a La Grande driveway
A shovel is enough
A normal winter drops about 1.2 tons of snow on this driveway in La Grande, 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 La Grande is light enough for one.
What a La Grande winter brings
- Snow a year
- 9 in
- Storms of 5 in or more
- 0.2 a winter
- Storms of 10 in or more
- almost never
- Days with snow on the ground
- 26
Light, below most snowy cities. A typical snowy US city gets about 3.3 times as much. It tends to stay, so each storm lands on the last one.
On a two car driveway that is about 1.2 tons of snow to move in a season, and a 10 inch storm weighs 2,600 pounds.
When the snow comes in La Grande
- Nov1.2
- Dec3.0
- Jan3.3
- Feb1.0
- Mar0.8
- Apr0.1
Snow worth clearing runs from November to February, heaviest in January. Buy the shovel before the first fall, when stores still have them.
La Grande and its neighbours
La Grande is number 11 of 57 Oregon towns here for snowfall; Baker City gets the most at 79 inches.
| Town | Miles | Snow | Two car, paved |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baker City, OR | 40 | 79 in | Two-stage snowblower |
| Pendleton, OR | 43 | 18 in | A shovel is enough |
| Walla Walla, WA | 53 | 7 in | A shovel is enough |
| Hermiston, OR | 68 | 4 in | A shovel is enough |
| Kennewick, WA | 80 | 2 in | No snowblower |
| Pasco, WA | 82 | 2 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 La Grande, 0.8 miles from La Grande. 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.
- Days with snow on the ground come from a second nearby station, because the closest one does not record snow depth.