Do you need a snowblower in Tumwater, WA?
The machine for a Tumwater driveway
A shovel is enough
A normal winter drops about 0.5 tons of snow on this driveway in Tumwater, 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 Tumwater is light enough for one.
What a Tumwater winter brings
- Snow a year
- 4 in
- Storms of 5 in or more
- 0.1 a winter
- Storms of 10 in or more
- about once every 10 winters
- 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 Tumwater 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 Tumwater
- Dec1.2
- Jan2.0
- Feb0.6
- Mar0.1
Snow worth clearing runs from December to January, heaviest in January. Buy the shovel before the first fall, when stores still have them.
Tumwater and its neighbours
Tumwater is number 47 of 91 Washington towns here for snowfall; Spokane gets the most at 45 inches.
| Town | Miles | Snow | Two car, paved |
|---|---|---|---|
| Olympia, WA | 4 | 4 in | A shovel is enough |
| Lacey, WA | 7 | 4 in | A shovel is enough |
| Yelm, WA | 13 | 4 in | A shovel is enough |
| Centralia, WA | 19 | 4 in | A shovel is enough |
| Shelton, WA | 19 | 4 in | A shovel is enough |
| Lakewood, WA | 22 | 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 Olympia Airport, 1.3 miles from Tumwater. 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.