Do you need a snowblower in Pendleton, OR?
What clears snow in Pendleton
A shovel is enough
A normal winter drops about 2.3 tons of snow on this driveway in Pendleton, 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 Pendleton is light enough for one.
How much snow Pendleton gets
- Snow a year
- 18 in
- Storms of 5 in or more
- 0.6 a winter
- Storms of 10 in or more
- almost never
- Days with snow on the ground
- 15
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 2.3 tons of snow to move in a season, and a 10 inch storm weighs 2,600 pounds.
When the snow comes in Pendleton
- Nov1.6
- Dec6.5
- Jan3.9
- Feb5.0
- Mar1.0
Snow worth clearing runs from November to March, heaviest in December. Buy the shovel before the first fall, when stores still have them.
Pendleton and its neighbours
Pendleton is number 4 of 57 Oregon towns here for snowfall; Baker City gets the most at 79 inches.
| Town | Miles | Snow | Two car, paved |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hermiston, OR | 25 | 4 in | A shovel is enough |
| Walla Walla, WA | 36 | 7 in | A shovel is enough |
| Kennewick, WA | 40 | 2 in | No snowblower |
| La Grande, OR | 43 | 9 in | A shovel is enough |
| Pasco, WA | 43 | 2 in | No snowblower |
| Richland, WA | 48 | 2 in | No snowblower |
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 Pendleton Wfo, 1.9 miles from Pendleton. 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.