Do you need a snowblower in Roswell, NM?
What clears snow in Roswell
A shovel is enough
A normal winter drops about 1.3 tons of snow on this driveway in Roswell, 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 Roswell is light enough for one.
A normal Roswell winter
- Snow a year
- 10 in
- Storms of 5 in or more
- 0.7 a winter
- Storms of 10 in or more
- almost never
- Days with snow on the ground
- 6
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 Roswell 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 Roswell
- Oct0.5
- Nov2.0
- Dec3.9
- Jan1.9
- Feb1.3
- Mar0.2
Snow worth clearing runs from November to February, heaviest in December. Buy the shovel before the first fall, when stores still have them.
Towns near Roswell
Roswell is number 6 of 19 New Mexico towns here for snowfall; Las Vegas gets the most at 22 inches.
| Town | Miles | Snow | Two car, paved |
|---|---|---|---|
| Artesia, NM | 37 | 4 in | A shovel is enough |
| Carlsbad, NM | 69 | 3 in | No snowblower |
| Lovington, NM | 74 | 1 in | No snowblower |
| Portales, NM | 87 | 8 in | A shovel is enough |
| Alamogordo, NM | 90 | 2 in | No snowblower |
| Hobbs, NM | 91 | 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 Roswell Climat, 0.9 miles from Roswell. 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.