Do you need a snowblower in Portland, OR?
The machine for a Portland driveway
A shovel is enough
A normal winter drops about 0.5 tons of snow on this driveway in Portland, 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 Portland is light enough for one.
A normal Portland winter
- Snow a year
- 4 in
- Storms of 5 in or more
- 0.2 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 Portland 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 Portland
- Dec0.9
- Jan1.3
- Feb1.4
Snow worth clearing runs from January to February, heaviest in February. Buy the shovel before the first fall, when stores still have them.
Towns near Portland
Portland is number 16 of 57 Oregon towns here for snowfall; Baker City gets the most at 79 inches.
| Town | Miles | Snow | Two car, paved |
|---|---|---|---|
| Milwaukie, OR | 7 | 4 in | A shovel is enough |
| Vancouver, WA | 7 | 4 in | A shovel is enough |
| Lake Oswego, OR | 9 | 4 in | A shovel is enough |
| Beaverton, OR | 9 | 4 in | A shovel is enough |
| Happy Valley, OR | 10 | 3 in | A shovel is enough |
| Tigard, OR | 10 | 4 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 Portland Kgw-Tv, 2.3 miles from Portland. 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.