Do you need a snowblower in Prescott, AZ?
The machine for a Prescott driveway
A shovel is enough
A normal winter drops about 1.3 tons of snow on this driveway in Prescott, 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 Prescott is light enough for one.
How much snow Prescott gets
- Snow a year
- 10 in
- Storms of 5 in or more
- 0.4 a winter
- Storms of 10 in or more
- almost never
- Days with snow on the ground
- 4
Light, below most snowy cities. A typical snowy US city gets about 3.3 times as much. Most of it melts within a few days, so in Prescott waiting a day is often a real option.
On a two car driveway that is about 1.3 tons of snow to move in a season, and a 10 inch storm weighs 2,600 pounds.
When the snow comes in Prescott
- Nov0.9
- Dec1.4
- Jan1.9
- Feb3.1
- Mar2.5
- Apr0.4
Snow worth clearing runs from December to March, heaviest in February. Buy the shovel before the first fall, when stores still have them.
Towns near Prescott
Prescott is number 5 of 44 Arizona towns here for snowfall; Flagstaff gets the most at 90 inches.
| Town | Miles | Snow | Two car, paved |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prescott Valley, AZ | 7 | 10 in | A shovel is enough |
| Chino Valley, AZ | 10 | 10 in | A shovel is enough |
| Cottonwood, AZ | 28 | 1 in | No snowblower |
| Camp Verde, AZ | 34 | 0 in | No snowblower |
| Peoria, AZ | 56 | 0 in | No snowblower |
| Flagstaff, AZ | 62 | 90 in | Two-stage 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 Prescott, 1.7 miles from Prescott. 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.
- The two nearest weather stations sit at very different heights, and the second one averages 2 inches a year. Hills around Prescott can get a lot more or less than this.