Do you need a snowblower in Salisbury, MD?
The machine for a Salisbury driveway
A shovel is enough
A normal winter drops about 1.0 tons of snow on this driveway in Salisbury, 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 Salisbury is light enough for one.
How much snow Salisbury gets
- Snow a year
- 8 in
- Storms of 5 in or more
- 0.5 a winter
- Storms of 10 in or more
- about once every 10 winters
- Days with snow on the ground
- 4
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 Salisbury waiting a day is often a real option.
On a two car driveway that is about 1.0 tons of snow to move in a season, and a 10 inch storm weighs 2,600 pounds.
When the snow comes in Salisbury
- Dec0.9
- Jan2.5
- Feb3.4
- Mar1.0
- Apr0.2
Snow worth clearing runs from January to March, heaviest in February. Buy the shovel before the first fall, when stores still have them.
Towns near Salisbury
Salisbury is number 22 of 23 Maryland towns here for snowfall; Hagerstown gets the most at 33 inches.
| Town | Miles | Snow | Two car, paved |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cambridge, MD | 29 | 14 in | A shovel is enough |
| Milford, DE | 38 | 13 in | A shovel is enough |
| Easton, MD | 38 | 14 in | A shovel is enough |
| Dover, DE | 54 | 13 in | A shovel is enough |
| Smyrna, DE | 64 | 13 in | A shovel is enough |
| Annapolis, MD | 64 | 16 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 Salisbury Wicomico Regional Airport, 4.8 miles from Salisbury. 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.