Do you need a snowblower in Sparks, NV?
What clears snow in Sparks
A shovel is enough
A normal winter drops about 0.9 tons of snow on this driveway in Sparks, 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 Sparks is light enough for one.
What a Sparks winter brings
- Snow a year
- 7 in
- Storms of 5 in or more
- 0.3 a winter
- Storms of 10 in or more
- almost never
- Days with snow on the ground
- 6
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 Sparks waiting a day is often a real option.
On a two car driveway that is about 0.9 tons of snow to move in a season, and a 10 inch storm weighs 2,600 pounds.
When the snow comes in Sparks
- Nov0.8
- Dec1.7
- Jan2.2
- Feb1.0
- Mar1.0
- Apr0.1
Snow worth clearing runs from December to March, heaviest in January. Buy the shovel before the first fall, when stores still have them.
Towns near Sparks
Sparks is number 4 of 10 Nevada towns here for snowfall; Elko gets the most at 41 inches.
| Town | Miles | Snow | Two car, paved |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reno, NV | 7 | 33 in | Gas single-stage |
| Fernley, NV | 28 | 5 in | A shovel is enough |
| Carson, NV | 29 | 14 in | A shovel is enough |
| Truckee, CA | 30 | 207 in | Two-stage snowblower |
| South Lake Tahoe, CA | 47 | 22 in | A shovel is enough |
| Grass Valley, CA | 75 | 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 Sparks, 1.6 miles from Sparks. 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.