SnowfallCheck

Do you need a snowblower in Somerset, KY?

The machine for a Somerset driveway

A shovel is enough

A normal winter drops about 1.4 tons of snow on this driveway in Somerset, 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 Somerset is light enough for one.

A normal Somerset winter

Snow a year
11 in
Storms of 5 in or more
0.3 a winter
Storms of 10 in or more
about once every 10 winters
Days with snow on the ground
8

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 Somerset waiting a day is often a real option.

On a two car driveway that is about 1.4 tons of snow to move in a season, and a 10 inch storm weighs 2,600 pounds.

When the snow comes in Somerset

  1. Dec2.6
  2. Jan4.5
  3. Feb2.6
  4. Mar1.2

Snow worth clearing runs from December to March, heaviest in January. Buy the shovel before the first fall, when stores still have them.

Somerset and its neighbours

Somerset is number 21 of 42 Kentucky towns here for snowfall; Covington gets the most at 23 inches.

TownMilesSnowTwo car, paved
Berea, KY391 inNo snowblower
Danville, KY397 inA shovel is enough
Campbellsville, KY4515 inA shovel is enough
Richmond, KY471 inNo snowblower
Nicholasville, KY5610 inA shovel is enough
Lexington-Fayette urban county, KY6615 inA 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 Somerset 2 NE, 2.1 miles from Somerset. 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.