Do you need a snowblower in Mercer Island, WA?
What clears snow in Mercer Island
A shovel is enough
A normal winter drops about 0.5 tons of snow on this driveway in Mercer Island, 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 Mercer Island is light enough for one.
How much snow Mercer Island gets
- 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 Mercer Island 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 Mercer Island
- Nov0.2
- Dec1.7
- Jan0.9
- 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.
Mercer Island and its neighbours
Mercer Island is number 57 of 91 Washington towns here for snowfall; Spokane gets the most at 45 inches.
| Town | Miles | Snow | Two car, paved |
|---|---|---|---|
| Newcastle, WA | 4 | 6 in | A shovel is enough |
| Bellevue, WA | 4 | 4 in | A shovel is enough |
| Renton, WA | 6 | 6 in | A shovel is enough |
| Tukwila, WA | 6 | 6 in | A shovel is enough |
| Seattle, WA | 7 | 4 in | A shovel is enough |
| Burien, WA | 8 | 6 in | A 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, 8.6 miles from Mercer Island. 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.