Do you need a snowblower in Tulsa, OK?
The machine for a Tulsa driveway
A shovel is enough
A normal winter drops about 1.1 tons of snow on this driveway in Tulsa, 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 Tulsa is light enough for one.
What a Tulsa winter brings
- Snow a year
- 9 in
- Storms of 5 in or more
- 0.4 a winter
- Storms of 10 in or more
- almost never
- Days with snow on the ground
- 6
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 Tulsa waiting a day is often a real option.
On a two car driveway that is about 1.1 tons of snow to move in a season, and a 10 inch storm weighs 2,600 pounds.
When the snow comes in Tulsa
- Nov0.8
- Dec1.7
- Jan1.9
- Feb2.4
- Mar1.9
Snow worth clearing runs from December to March, heaviest in February. Buy the shovel before the first fall, when stores still have them.
Tulsa and its neighbours
Tulsa is number 3 of 45 Oklahoma towns here for snowfall; Woodward gets the most at 15 inches.
| Town | Miles | Snow | Two car, paved |
|---|---|---|---|
| Broken Arrow, OK | 9 | 9 in | A shovel is enough |
| Jenks, OK | 10 | 9 in | A shovel is enough |
| Owasso, OK | 12 | 9 in | A shovel is enough |
| Bixby, OK | 13 | 3 in | No snowblower |
| Sand Springs, OK | 13 | 9 in | A shovel is enough |
| Glenpool, OK | 14 | 9 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 Tulsa International Airport, 5.0 miles from Tulsa. 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.