Do you need a snowblower in Vernal, UT?
What clears snow in Vernal
A shovel is enough
A normal winter drops about 2.7 tons of snow on this driveway in Vernal, 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 Vernal is light enough for one.
How much snow Vernal gets
- Snow a year
- 20 in
- Storms of 5 in or more
- 0.5 a winter
- Storms of 10 in or more
- about once every 10 winters
- Days with snow on the ground
- 61
Light, below most snowy cities. A typical snowy US city gets about 1.7 times as much. It tends to stay, so each storm lands on the last one.
On a two car driveway that is about 2.7 tons of snow to move in a season, and a 10 inch storm weighs 2,600 pounds.
When the snow comes in Vernal
- Oct0.5
- Nov1.6
- Dec6.4
- Jan5.8
- Feb3.9
- Mar1.6
- Apr0.6
Snow worth clearing runs from November to March, heaviest in December. Buy the shovel before the first fall, when stores still have them.
Towns near Vernal
Vernal is number 63 of 67 Utah towns here for snowfall; Bountiful gets the most at 119 inches.
| Town | Miles | Snow | Two car, paved |
|---|---|---|---|
| Green River, WY | 73 | 39 in | Cordless single-stage |
| Rock Springs, WY | 81 | 31 in | Cordless single-stage |
| Evanston, WY | 93 | 50 in | Gas single-stage |
| Heber, UT | 97 | 75 in | Two-stage snowblower |
| Fruita, CO | 99 | 22 in | A shovel is enough |
| Grand Junction, CO | 107 | 18 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 Vernal, 0.8 miles from Vernal. 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.
- The two nearest weather stations sit at very different heights, and the second one averages 62 inches a year. Hills around Vernal can get a lot more or less than this.