Do you need a snowblower in Ontario, OR?
The machine for a Ontario driveway
A shovel is enough
A normal winter drops about 2.0 tons of snow on this driveway in Ontario, 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 Ontario is light enough for one.
A normal Ontario winter
- Snow a year
- 15 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
- 17
Light, below most snowy cities. A typical snowy US city gets about 2.5 times as much. It tends to stay, so each storm lands on the last one.
On a two car driveway that is about 2.0 tons of snow to move in a season, and a 10 inch storm weighs 2,600 pounds.
When the snow comes in Ontario
- Nov1.1
- Dec5.4
- Jan6.1
- Feb2.3
- Mar0.5
Snow worth clearing runs from November to February, heaviest in January. Buy the shovel before the first fall, when stores still have them.
Towns near Ontario
Ontario is number 5 of 57 Oregon towns here for snowfall; Baker City gets the most at 79 inches.
| Town | Miles | Snow | Two car, paved |
|---|---|---|---|
| Middleton, ID | 28 | 10 in | A shovel is enough |
| Caldwell, ID | 31 | 10 in | A shovel is enough |
| Star, ID | 33 | 10 in | A shovel is enough |
| Eagle, ID | 36 | 18 in | A shovel is enough |
| Nampa, ID | 37 | 10 in | A shovel is enough |
| Meridian, ID | 41 | 18 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 Malheur Branch Exp Station, 4.0 miles from Ontario. 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.
- Days with snow on the ground come from a second nearby station, because the closest one does not record snow depth.