Do you need a snowblower in Tigard, OR?
The machine for a Tigard driveway
A shovel is enough
A normal winter drops about 0.5 tons of snow on this driveway in Tigard, 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 Tigard is light enough for one.
How much snow Tigard gets
- Snow a year
- 4 in
- Storms of 5 in or more
- 0.2 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 Tigard waiting a day is often a real option.
On a two car driveway that is about 0.5 tons of snow to move in a season, and a 10 inch storm weighs 2,600 pounds.
When the snow comes in Tigard
- Dec0.9
- Jan1.3
- Feb1.4
Snow worth clearing runs from January to February, heaviest in February. Buy the shovel before the first fall, when stores still have them.
Tigard and its neighbours
Tigard is number 18 of 57 Oregon towns here for snowfall; Baker City gets the most at 79 inches.
| Town | Miles | Snow | Two car, paved |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tualatin, OR | 3 | 1 in | No snowblower |
| Beaverton, OR | 4 | 4 in | A shovel is enough |
| Lake Oswego, OR | 4 | 4 in | A shovel is enough |
| Sherwood, OR | 5 | 1 in | No snowblower |
| Wilsonville, OR | 8 | 1 in | No snowblower |
| West Linn, OR | 8 | 4 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 Portland Kgw-Tv, 8.0 miles from Tigard. 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.