Do you need a snowblower in Portsmouth, OH?
What clears snow in Portsmouth
A shovel is enough
A normal winter drops about 0.9 tons of snow on this driveway in Portsmouth, 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 Portsmouth is light enough for one.
A normal Portsmouth winter
- Snow a year
- 7 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
- 5
Light, below most snowy cities. A typical snowy US city gets about 5.0 times as much. Most of it melts within a few days, so in Portsmouth waiting a day is often a real option.
On a two car driveway that is about 0.9 tons of snow to move in a season, and a 10 inch storm weighs 2,600 pounds.
When the snow comes in Portsmouth
- Dec0.3
- Jan3.7
- Feb1.4
- Mar1.2
Snow worth clearing runs from January to March, heaviest in January. Buy the shovel before the first fall, when stores still have them.
Portsmouth and its neighbours
Portsmouth is number 175 of 176 Ohio towns here for snowfall; Euclid gets the most at 114 inches.
| Town | Miles | Snow | Two car, paved |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ironton, OH | 21 | 6 in | A shovel is enough |
| Ashland, KY | 26 | 6 in | A shovel is enough |
| Huntington, WV | 37 | 10 in | A shovel is enough |
| Chillicothe, OH | 41 | 12 in | A shovel is enough |
| Circleville, OH | 59 | 15 in | A shovel is enough |
| Washington Court House, OH | 60 | 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 Greenup Locks & Dam, 8.7 miles from Portsmouth. 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.