SnowfallCheck

Do you need a snowblower in Meridian, ID?

The machine for a Meridian driveway

A shovel is enough

A normal winter drops about 2.4 tons of snow on this driveway in Meridian, 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 Meridian is light enough for one.

What a Meridian winter brings

Snow a year
18 in
Storms of 5 in or more
0.3 a winter
Storms of 10 in or more
almost never
Days with snow on the ground
28

Light, below most snowy cities. A typical snowy US city gets about 2.0 times as much. It tends to stay, so each storm lands on the last one.

On a two car driveway that is about 2.4 tons of snow to move in a season, and a 10 inch storm weighs 2,600 pounds.

When the snow comes in Meridian

  1. Nov1.9
  2. Dec7.0
  3. Jan5.0
  4. Feb3.6
  5. Mar0.8

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

Meridian and its neighbours

Meridian is number 15 of 26 Idaho towns here for snowfall; Rexburg gets the most at 70 inches.

TownMilesSnowTwo car, paved
Kuna, ID618 inA shovel is enough
Eagle, ID618 inA shovel is enough
Garden City, ID718 inA shovel is enough
Star, ID810 inA shovel is enough
Nampa, ID810 inA shovel is enough
Boise City, ID918 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 Boise 5.3 NW, 7.9 miles from Meridian. 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.