Do you need a snowblower in Lubbock, TX?
The machine for a Lubbock driveway
A shovel is enough
A normal winter drops about 0.9 tons of snow on this driveway in Lubbock, 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 Lubbock is light enough for one.
A normal Lubbock winter
- Snow a year
- 7 in
- Storms of 5 in or more
- 0.1 a winter
- Storms of 10 in or more
- about once every 10 winters
- Days with snow on the ground
- 4
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 Lubbock 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 Lubbock
- Oct0.1
- Nov1.0
- Dec2.4
- Jan1.6
- Feb1.4
- Mar0.4
- Apr0.1
Snow worth clearing runs from November to February, heaviest in December. Buy the shovel before the first fall, when stores still have them.
Towns near Lubbock
Lubbock is number 8 of 252 Texas towns here for snowfall; Amarillo gets the most at 17 inches.
| Town | Miles | Snow | Two car, paved |
|---|---|---|---|
| Levelland, TX | 27 | 6 in | A shovel is enough |
| Plainview, TX | 44 | 8 in | A shovel is enough |
| Snyder, TX | 81 | 2 in | No snowblower |
| Hereford, TX | 92 | 14 in | A shovel is enough |
| Hobbs, NM | 93 | 2 in | No snowblower |
| Andrews, TX | 94 | 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 Lubbock, 7.7 miles from Lubbock. 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.