Do you need a snowblower in Suffolk, VA?
Your answer for Suffolk
A shovel is enough
A normal winter drops about 0.8 tons of snow on this driveway in Suffolk, 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 Suffolk is light enough for one.
How much snow Suffolk gets
- Snow a year
- 6 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
- 3
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 Suffolk waiting a day is often a real option.
On a two car driveway that is about 0.8 tons of snow to move in a season, and a 10 inch storm weighs 2,600 pounds.
When the snow comes in Suffolk
- Dec0.9
- Jan3.1
- Feb1.5
- Mar0.3
Snow worth clearing runs from January to February, heaviest in January. Buy the shovel before the first fall, when stores still have them.
Towns near Suffolk
Suffolk is number 27 of 39 Virginia towns here for snowfall; Blacksburg gets the most at 25 inches.
| Town | Miles | Snow | Two car, paved |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chesapeake, VA | 18 | 6 in | A shovel is enough |
| Portsmouth, VA | 19 | 3 in | A shovel is enough |
| Norfolk, VA | 27 | 3 in | A shovel is enough |
| Newport News, VA | 27 | 3 in | No snowblower |
| Hampton, VA | 31 | 3 in | No snowblower |
| Virginia Beach, VA | 34 | 3 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 Suffolk Lake Kilby, 2.9 miles from Suffolk. 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.