SnowfallCheck

Do you need a snowblower in Merriam, KS?

The machine for a Merriam driveway

A shovel is enough

A normal winter drops about 1.4 tons of snow on this driveway in Merriam, 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 Merriam is light enough for one.

How much snow Merriam gets

Snow a year
11 in
Storms of 5 in or more
0.4 a winter
Storms of 10 in or more
about once every 10 winters
Days with snow on the ground
19

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 1.4 tons of snow to move in a season, and a 10 inch storm weighs 2,600 pounds.

When the snow comes in Merriam

  1. Oct0.3
  2. Nov0.1
  3. Dec3.5
  4. Jan3.4
  5. Feb3.2
  6. Mar0.4
  7. Apr0.1

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

Merriam and its neighbours

Merriam is number 25 of 38 Kansas towns here for snowfall; Dodge City gets the most at 19 inches.

TownMilesSnowTwo car, paved
Mission, KS211 inA shovel is enough
Prairie Village, KS411 inA shovel is enough
Shawnee, KS617 inA shovel is enough
Lenexa, KS714 inA shovel is enough
Kansas City, KS811 inA shovel is enough
Leawood, KS814 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 Kansas City Downtown Airport, 8.8 miles from Merriam. 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.