Do you need a snowblower in Vancouver, WA?
The machine for a Vancouver driveway
A shovel is enough
A normal winter drops about 0.5 tons of snow on this driveway in Vancouver, 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 Vancouver is light enough for one.
How much snow Vancouver gets
- Snow a year
- 4 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
- 3
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 Vancouver 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 Vancouver
- Dec1.2
- Jan1.7
- Feb1.2
- Mar0.1
Snow worth clearing runs from December to February, heaviest in January. Buy the shovel before the first fall, when stores still have them.
Towns near Vancouver
Vancouver is number 44 of 91 Washington towns here for snowfall; Spokane gets the most at 45 inches.
| Town | Miles | Snow | Two car, paved |
|---|---|---|---|
| Portland, OR | 7 | 4 in | A shovel is enough |
| Camas, WA | 8 | 3 in | A shovel is enough |
| Fairview, OR | 10 | 3 in | A shovel is enough |
| Battle Ground, WA | 10 | 1 in | No snowblower |
| Troutdale, OR | 12 | 3 in | A shovel is enough |
| Gresham, OR | 12 | 3 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 International Airport, 3.2 miles from Vancouver. 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.