SnowfallCheck

Do you need a snowblower in Washington, IN?

Your answer for Washington

A shovel is enough

A normal winter drops about 1.2 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.

What a Washington winter brings

Snow a year
9 in
Storms of 5 in or more
0.3 a winter
Storms of 10 in or more
almost never
Days with snow on the ground
10

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 1.2 tons of snow to move in a season, and a 10 inch storm weighs 2,600 pounds.

When the snow comes in Washington

  1. Oct0.1
  2. Nov0.1
  3. Dec3.1
  4. Jan2.9
  5. Feb2.0
  6. Mar1.0

Snow worth clearing runs from December to March, heaviest in December. Buy the shovel before the first fall, when stores still have them.

Washington and its neighbours

Washington is number 82 of 88 Indiana towns here for snowfall; Michigan City gets the most at 65 inches.

TownMilesSnowTwo car, paved
Vincennes, IN199 inA shovel is enough
Jasper, IN2214 inA shovel is enough
Bedford, IN3910 inA shovel is enough
Bloomington, IN4918 inA shovel is enough
Evansville, IN5111 inA shovel is enough
Terre Haute, IN5715 inA 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 Washington 1 W, 2.2 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.