Do you need a snowblower in St. Louis, MO?
Your answer for St. Louis
A shovel is enough
A normal winter drops about 1.8 tons of snow on this driveway in St. Louis, 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. Louis is light enough for one.
How much snow St. Louis gets
- Snow a year
- 14 in
- Storms of 5 in or more
- 0.6 a winter
- Storms of 10 in or more
- about once every 10 winters
- Days with snow on the ground
- 15
Light, below most snowy cities. A typical snowy US city gets about 2.5 times as much. It tends to stay, so each storm lands on the last one.
On a two car driveway that is about 1.8 tons of snow to move in a season, and a 10 inch storm weighs 2,600 pounds.
When the snow comes in St. Louis
- Nov0.8
- Dec2.9
- Jan4.9
- Feb3.7
- Mar1.2
- Apr0.3
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 St. Louis
St. Louis is number 27 of 80 Missouri towns here for snowfall; St. Joseph gets the most at 21 inches.
| Town | Miles | Snow | Two car, paved |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clayton, MO | 5 | 17 in | A shovel is enough |
| University City, MO | 5 | 17 in | A shovel is enough |
| Jennings, MO | 6 | 17 in | A shovel is enough |
| East St. Louis, IL | 6 | 14 in | A shovel is enough |
| Cahokia Heights, IL | 7 | 14 in | A shovel is enough |
| Webster Groves, MO | 7 | 10 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 Cahokia, 5.5 miles from St. Louis. 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.