Do you need a snowblower in Wilmington, DE?
What clears snow in Wilmington
A shovel is enough
A normal winter drops about 1.6 tons of snow on this driveway in Wilmington, 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 Wilmington is light enough for one.
How much snow Wilmington gets
- Snow a year
- 12 in
- Storms of 5 in or more
- 1.1 a winter
- Storms of 10 in or more
- about once every 10 winters
- Days with snow on the ground
- 17
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 1.6 tons of snow to move in a season, and a 10 inch storm weighs 2,600 pounds.
When the snow comes in Wilmington
- Nov0.1
- Dec0.8
- Jan5.3
- Feb4.0
- Mar1.8
Snow worth clearing runs from January to March, heaviest in January. Buy the shovel before the first fall, when stores still have them.
Wilmington and its neighbours
Wilmington is number 6 of 6 Delaware towns here for snowfall; Newark gets the most at 20 inches.
| Town | Miles | Snow | Two car, paved |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chester, PA | 11 | 23 in | Gas single-stage |
| Newark, DE | 13 | 20 in | A shovel is enough |
| West Chester, PA | 16 | 31 in | Two-stage snowblower |
| Elkton, MD | 18 | 20 in | A shovel is enough |
| Darby, PA | 19 | 23 in | Gas single-stage |
| Lansdowne, PA | 20 | 23 in | Gas single-stage |
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 Wilmington Porter Rsch, 2.7 miles from Wilmington. 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.
- Days with snow on the ground come from a second nearby station, because the closest one does not record snow depth.