Do you need a snowblower in Winston-Salem, NC?
Your answer for Winston-Salem
A shovel is enough
A normal winter drops about 0.8 tons of snow on this driveway in Winston-Salem, 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 Winston-Salem is light enough for one.
How much snow Winston-Salem gets
- Snow a year
- 6 in
- Storms of 5 in or more
- 0.4 a winter
- Storms of 10 in or more
- almost never
- Days with snow on the ground
- 4
Light, below most snowy cities. A typical snowy US city gets about 5.0 times as much. Most of it melts within a few days, so in Winston-Salem waiting a day is often a real option.
On a two car driveway that is about 0.8 tons of snow to move in a season, and a 10 inch storm weighs 2,600 pounds.
When the snow comes in Winston-Salem
- Dec1.3
- Jan2.5
- Feb1.8
- Mar0.6
Snow worth clearing runs from December to February, heaviest in January. Buy the shovel before the first fall, when stores still have them.
Winston-Salem and its neighbours
Winston-Salem is number 12 of 91 North Carolina towns here for snowfall; Boone gets the most at 26 inches.
| Town | Miles | Snow | Two car, paved |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clemmons, NC | 9 | 7 in | A shovel is enough |
| Lewisville, NC | 9 | 7 in | A shovel is enough |
| Kernersville, NC | 10 | 7 in | A shovel is enough |
| High Point, NC | 17 | 2 in | No snowblower |
| Thomasville, NC | 18 | 2 in | No snowblower |
| Lexington, NC | 21 | 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 King, 13.7 miles from Winston-Salem. 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.