SnowfallCheck

Do you need a snowblower in Mountlake Terrace, WA?

The machine for a Mountlake Terrace driveway

A shovel is enough

A normal winter drops about 0.5 tons of snow on this driveway in Mountlake Terrace, 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 Mountlake Terrace is light enough for one.

What a Mountlake Terrace winter brings

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 Mountlake Terrace 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 Mountlake Terrace

  1. Nov0.2
  2. Dec1.7
  3. Jan0.9
  4. 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.

Towns near Mountlake Terrace

Mountlake Terrace is number 58 of 91 Washington towns here for snowfall; Spokane gets the most at 45 inches.

TownMilesSnowTwo car, paved
Lynnwood, WA24 inA shovel is enough
Lake Forest Park, WA24 inA shovel is enough
Edmonds, WA34 inA shovel is enough
Shoreline, WA34 inA shovel is enough
Kenmore, WA44 inA shovel is enough
Bothell, WA54 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 Seattle Sand Pt Wsfo, 7.7 miles from Mountlake Terrace. 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.