Do you need a snowblower in Morganton, NC?
The machine for a Morganton driveway
A shovel is enough
A normal winter drops about 0.6 tons of snow on this driveway in Morganton, 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 Morganton is light enough for one.
A normal Morganton winter
- Snow a year
- 5 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
- 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 Morganton waiting a day is often a real option.
On a two car driveway that is about 0.6 tons of snow to move in a season, and a 10 inch storm weighs 2,600 pounds.
When the snow comes in Morganton
- Dec1.6
- Jan1.0
- Feb0.3
- Mar1.6
Snow worth clearing runs from December to March, heaviest in December. Buy the shovel before the first fall, when stores still have them.
Morganton and its neighbours
Morganton is number 26 of 91 North Carolina towns here for snowfall; Boone gets the most at 26 inches.
| Town | Miles | Snow | Two car, paved |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lenoir, NC | 15 | 4 in | A shovel is enough |
| Hickory, NC | 21 | 0 in | No snowblower |
| Newton, NC | 27 | 0 in | No snowblower |
| Lincolnton, NC | 32 | 6 in | A shovel is enough |
| Shelby, NC | 32 | 4 in | A shovel is enough |
| Boone, NC | 33 | 26 in | Cordless 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 Morganton, 1.7 miles from Morganton. 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.