SnowfallCheck

Do you need a snowblower in Lansdale, PA?

The machine for a Lansdale driveway

A shovel is enough

A normal winter drops about 1.7 tons of snow on this driveway in Lansdale, 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 Lansdale is light enough for one.

How much snow Lansdale gets

Snow a year
13 in
Storms of 5 in or more
0.8 a winter
Storms of 10 in or more
about once every 5 winters
Days with snow on the ground
9

Light, below most snowy cities. A typical snowy US city gets about 2.5 times as much. It tends to stay, so each storm lands on the last one.

On a two car driveway that is about 1.7 tons of snow to move in a season, and a 10 inch storm weighs 2,600 pounds.

When the snow comes in Lansdale

  1. Dec2.2
  2. Jan3.9
  3. Feb5.4
  4. Mar1.3
  5. Apr0.1

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

Towns near Lansdale

Lansdale is number 67 of 68 Pennsylvania towns here for snowfall; Erie gets the most at 104 inches.

TownMilesSnowTwo car, paved
Norristown, PA925 inTwo-stage snowblower
Phoenixville, PA1513 inA shovel is enough
Philadelphia, PA1816 inA shovel is enough
Pottstown, PA194 inA shovel is enough
Lansdowne, PA2123 inGas single-stage
Yeadon, PA2123 inGas single-stage

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 Graterford 1 E, 7.6 miles from Lansdale. 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.