Do you need a snowblower in Topeka, KS?
Your answer for Topeka
A shovel is enough
A normal winter drops about 2.2 tons of snow on this driveway in Topeka, 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 Topeka is light enough for one.
How much snow Topeka gets
- Snow a year
- 17 in
- Storms of 5 in or more
- 0.5 a winter
- Storms of 10 in or more
- almost never
- Days with snow on the ground
- 18
Light, below most snowy cities. A typical snowy US city gets about 2.0 times as much. It tends to stay, so each storm lands on the last one.
On a two car driveway that is about 2.2 tons of snow to move in a season, and a 10 inch storm weighs 2,600 pounds.
When the snow comes in Topeka
- Oct0.4
- Nov1.0
- Dec4.1
- Jan4.6
- Feb5.2
- Mar1.7
- Apr0.1
Snow worth clearing runs from November to March, heaviest in February. Buy the shovel before the first fall, when stores still have them.
Topeka and its neighbours
Topeka is number 6 of 38 Kansas towns here for snowfall; Dodge City gets the most at 19 inches.
| Town | Miles | Snow | Two car, paved |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lawrence, KS | 24 | 10 in | A shovel is enough |
| Ottawa, KS | 38 | 9 in | A shovel is enough |
| Gardner, KS | 45 | 14 in | A shovel is enough |
| Lansing, KS | 45 | 19 in | A shovel is enough |
| Leavenworth, KS | 46 | 19 in | A shovel is enough |
| Atchison, KS | 47 | 17 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 Topeka Municipal Airport, 4.6 miles from Topeka. 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.