Do you need a snowblower in Show Low, AZ?
Your answer for Show Low
A shovel is enough
A normal winter drops about 2.5 tons of snow on this driveway in Show Low, 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 Show Low is light enough for one.
A normal Show Low winter
- Snow a year
- 19 in
- Storms of 5 in or more
- 1.3 a winter
- Storms of 10 in or more
- about once every 10 winters
- Days with snow on the ground
- 12
Light, below most snowy cities. A typical snowy US city gets about 2.0 times as much. Most of it melts within a few days, so in Show Low waiting a day is often a real option.
On a two car driveway that is about 2.5 tons of snow to move in a season, and a 10 inch storm weighs 2,600 pounds.
When the snow comes in Show Low
- Oct0.4
- Nov1.9
- Dec5.4
- Jan4.0
- Feb3.8
- Mar2.3
- Apr1.6
Snow worth clearing runs from November to April, heaviest in December. Buy the shovel before the first fall, when stores still have them.
Show Low and its neighbours
Show Low is number 2 of 44 Arizona towns here for snowfall; Flagstaff gets the most at 90 inches.
| Town | Miles | Snow | Two car, paved |
|---|---|---|---|
| Payson, AZ | 73 | 19 in | A shovel is enough |
| Safford, AZ | 101 | 0 in | No snowblower |
| Apache Junction, AZ | 106 | 0 in | No snowblower |
| Camp Verde, AZ | 106 | 0 in | No snowblower |
| Fountain Hills, AZ | 108 | 0 in | No snowblower |
| Flagstaff, AZ | 110 | 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 Show Low Airport, 1.8 miles from Show Low. 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.