Do you need a snowblower in Santa Fe, NM?
The machine for a Santa Fe driveway
A shovel is enough
A normal winter drops about 2.6 tons of snow on this driveway in Santa Fe, 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 Santa Fe is light enough for one.
What a Santa Fe winter brings
- Snow a year
- 20 in
- Storms of 5 in or more
- 0.9 a winter
- Storms of 10 in or more
- about once every 10 winters
- Days with snow on the ground
- 9
Light, below most snowy cities. A typical snowy US city gets about 1.7 times as much. Most of it melts within a few days, so in Santa Fe waiting a day is often a real option.
On a two car driveway that is about 2.6 tons of snow to move in a season, and a 10 inch storm weighs 2,600 pounds.
When the snow comes in Santa Fe
- Oct1.3
- Nov1.7
- Dec6.8
- Jan3.7
- Feb2.4
- Mar3.9
- Apr0.4
Snow worth clearing runs from October to March, heaviest in December. Buy the shovel before the first fall, when stores still have them.
Towns near Santa Fe
Santa Fe is number 3 of 19 New Mexico towns here for snowfall; Las Vegas gets the most at 22 inches.
| Town | Miles | Snow | Two car, paved |
|---|---|---|---|
| Española, NM | 24 | 11 in | A shovel is enough |
| Las Vegas, NM | 43 | 22 in | A shovel is enough |
| Rio Rancho, NM | 48 | 9 in | A shovel is enough |
| Albuquerque, NM | 54 | 8 in | A shovel is enough |
| Los Lunas, NM | 75 | 5 in | A shovel is enough |
| Farmington, NM | 144 | 9 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 Santa Fe 2, 3.0 miles from Santa Fe. 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.