Do you need a snowblower in Sumner, WA?
Your answer for Sumner
A shovel is enough
A normal winter drops about 0.7 tons of snow on this driveway in Sumner, 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 Sumner is light enough for one.
How much snow Sumner gets
- Snow a year
- 6 in
- Storms of 5 in or more
- 0.1 a winter
- Storms of 10 in or more
- almost never
- Days with snow on the ground
- 5
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 Sumner waiting a day is often a real option.
On a two car driveway that is about 0.7 tons of snow to move in a season, and a 10 inch storm weighs 2,600 pounds.
When the snow comes in Sumner
- Nov1.5
- Dec1.5
- Jan1.5
- Feb0.5
- Mar0.6
Snow worth clearing runs from November to January, heaviest in November. Buy the shovel before the first fall, when stores still have them.
Sumner and its neighbours
Sumner is number 37 of 91 Washington towns here for snowfall; Spokane gets the most at 45 inches.
| Town | Miles | Snow | Two car, paved |
|---|---|---|---|
| Edgewood, WA | 2 | 6 in | A shovel is enough |
| Bonney Lake, WA | 4 | 6 in | A shovel is enough |
| Puyallup, WA | 4 | 6 in | A shovel is enough |
| Fife, WA | 5 | 6 in | A shovel is enough |
| Auburn, WA | 5 | 6 in | A shovel is enough |
| Federal Way, WA | 8 | 6 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 Mcmillin Rsvr, 6.4 miles from Sumner. 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.