Do you need a snowblower in Washington, DC?
The machine for a Washington driveway
A shovel is enough
A normal winter drops about 1.3 tons of snow on this driveway in Washington, 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 Washington is light enough for one.
A normal Washington winter
- Snow a year
- 10 in
- Storms of 5 in or more
- 0.6 a winter
- Storms of 10 in or more
- almost never
- Days with snow on the ground
- 12
Light, below most snowy cities. A typical snowy US city gets about 3.3 times as much. It tends to stay, so each storm lands on the last one.
On a two car driveway that is about 1.3 tons of snow to move in a season, and a 10 inch storm weighs 2,600 pounds.
When the snow comes in Washington
- Dec1.3
- Jan4.7
- Feb2.3
- Mar1.4
Snow worth clearing runs from December to March, heaviest in January. Buy the shovel before the first fall, when stores still have them.
Towns near Washington
Washington is the snowiest District of Columbia town here for snowfall.
| Town | Miles | Snow | Two car, paved |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hyattsville, MD | 5 | 10 in | A shovel is enough |
| Takoma Park, MD | 5 | 10 in | A shovel is enough |
| Alexandria, VA | 7 | 14 in | A shovel is enough |
| College Park, MD | 8 | 16 in | A shovel is enough |
| New Carrollton, MD | 9 | 16 in | A shovel is enough |
| Falls Church, VA | 9 | 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 Natl Arboretum Dc, 2.6 miles from Washington. 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.