Do you need a snowblower in Shelby, NC?
What clears snow in Shelby
A shovel is enough
A normal winter drops about 0.5 tons of snow on this driveway in Shelby, 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 Shelby is light enough for one.
A normal Shelby winter
- Snow a year
- 4 in
- Storms of 5 in or more
- 0.2 a winter
- Storms of 10 in or more
- about once every 10 winters
- Days with snow on the ground
- 2
Light, below most snowy cities. A typical snowy US city gets about 10.0 times as much. Most of it melts within a few days, so in Shelby waiting a day is often a real option.
On a two car driveway that is about 0.5 tons of snow to move in a season, and a 10 inch storm weighs 2,600 pounds.
When the snow comes in Shelby
- Nov0.1
- Dec0.8
- Jan1.8
- Feb0.6
- Mar0.7
Inches of new snow per month, averaged over 1991 to 2020.
Shelby and its neighbours
Shelby is number 29 of 91 North Carolina towns here for snowfall; Boone gets the most at 26 inches.
| Town | Miles | Snow | Two car, paved |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kings Mountain, NC | 12 | 1 in | No snowblower |
| Gaffney, SC | 16 | 2 in | No snowblower |
| Gastonia, NC | 21 | 1 in | No snowblower |
| Lincolnton, NC | 21 | 6 in | A shovel is enough |
| Belmont, NC | 29 | 4 in | A shovel is enough |
| Mount Holly, NC | 30 | 4 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 Shelby 2 NW, 2.0 miles from Shelby. 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.