Do you need a snowblower in St. Helens, OR?
The machine for a St. Helens driveway
A shovel is enough
A normal winter drops about 0.4 tons of snow on this driveway in St. Helens, 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 St. Helens is light enough for one.
A normal St. Helens winter
- Snow a year
- 3 in
- Storms of 5 in or more
- 0.0 a winter
- Storms of 10 in or more
- almost never
- 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 St. Helens waiting a day is often a real option.
On a two car driveway that is about 0.4 tons of snow to move in a season, and a 10 inch storm weighs 2,600 pounds.
When the snow comes in St. Helens
- Dec0.3
- Jan1.6
- Feb0.9
- Mar0.2
Inches of new snow per month, averaged over 1991 to 2020.
Towns near St. Helens
St. Helens is number 30 of 57 Oregon towns here for snowfall; Baker City gets the most at 79 inches.
| Town | Miles | Snow | Two car, paved |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ridgefield, WA | 7 | 1 in | No snowblower |
| Battle Ground, WA | 14 | 1 in | No snowblower |
| Kelso, WA | 18 | 2 in | No snowblower |
| Vancouver, WA | 19 | 4 in | A shovel is enough |
| Longview, WA | 21 | 2 in | No snowblower |
| Hillsboro, OR | 23 | 3 in | No 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 Merwin Dam, 13.9 miles from St. Helens. 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.