Do you need a snowblower in Petersburg, VA?
Your answer for Petersburg
A shovel is enough
A normal winter drops about 0.5 tons of snow on this driveway in Petersburg, 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 Petersburg is light enough for one.
How much snow Petersburg gets
- Snow a year
- 4 in
- Storms of 5 in or more
- 0.3 a winter
- Storms of 10 in or more
- about once every 10 winters
- Days with snow on the ground
- 1
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 Petersburg 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 Petersburg
- Dec0.4
- Jan2.1
- Feb1.0
Snow worth clearing runs from January to February, heaviest in January. Buy the shovel before the first fall, when stores still have them.
Towns near Petersburg
Petersburg is number 31 of 39 Virginia towns here for snowfall; Blacksburg gets the most at 25 inches.
| Town | Miles | Snow | Two car, paved |
|---|---|---|---|
| Colonial Heights, VA | 4 | 4 in | A shovel is enough |
| Hopewell, VA | 8 | 4 in | A shovel is enough |
| Richmond, VA | 23 | 9 in | A shovel is enough |
| Williamsburg, VA | 38 | 4 in | A shovel is enough |
| Newport News, VA | 49 | 3 in | No snowblower |
| Roanoke Rapids, NC | 54 | 5 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 Hopewell, 9.1 miles from Petersburg. 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.