Is CO snow low enough for an electric snowblower (Denver: HOA, how much)

[moshywilly]

Y'all have seen my username on City-Data many times and obviously I keep dreaming of moving from NJ to NM, but now I am having second thoughts on NM due to the bad things I hear about it. I am considering other states in the West. I am not worried about summers here in CO, but how is the snow here?

I don't want snow like what I got on the East Coast. I don't like NJ's 1 foot of snow when we have Nor'Easters. When we have less snow, it can still be a pain to shovel due to the humid air making the snow slushy as hell. My dad just bought an electric snowblower and I love it. All it takes a little technique and practice to easily manuever it. It takes less snow than the gas snowblower, but the gas snowblower requires strength to even use it. Also, I don't like the extreme cold of the East Coast and I heard that humidity makes winters nothing like the West's winters.

[maciesmom]

Where in Colorado?

Lot size- how much snow will you be responsible for moving?

A small, south facing home in the front range suburbs will not have the same snow removal needs (or overall winter experience) as a rural plains ranch or a mountain property with acreage, or a western slope home.

[moshywilly]

Originally Posted by maciesmom

Where in Colorado?

Lot size- how much snow will you be responsible for moving?

A small, south facing home in the front range suburbs will not have the same snow removal needs (or overall winter experience) as a rural plains ranch or a mountain property with acreage, or a western slope home.

A regular house with a regular driveway I mean.

[maciesmom]

Originally Posted by potanta

A regular house with a regular driveway I mean.

Again, where in Colorado?



Assuming you mean front range suburbs....

Winter overall is milder than New Jersey, but we can and do get occasional big, wet snows. These will typically occur in Mar /April and melt within a day or two. A south facing driveway makes a huge difference. We've lived in Denver for 25 years without a snowblower - even with a corner lot. That doesn't mean we don't sometimes wish we had one. Also know that in newer, front range suburbs, lot sizes are not likely as large as you'd expect in suburban NJ - so often shorter driveways, less sidewalk.

[beezle1]

The amount and heaviness of snow here will all depend on where you live and what the storm is like. Things can vary a lot here. You may get 6 inches of snow that turns into 3 foot drifts. We do get heavy wet snow in the spring months. Generally we don't have those snows where it the snow remains on the ground for the whole winter season - usually it melts or evaporates pretty quickly. This does depend on where you live. I pretty much have 'glaciers' that last all winter long in places where it has drifted early on - may not completely melt until May. However, I live in a place that is known for getting kind of crazy weather. Most of the places in suburbia don't get a ton of snow.

[moshywilly]

Originally Posted by maciesmom

Again, where in Colorado?



Assuming you mean front range suburbs....

Winter overall is milder than New Jersey, but we can and do get occasional big, wet snows. These will typically occur in Mar /April and melt within a day or two. A south facing driveway makes a huge difference. We've lived in Denver for 25 years without a snowblower - even with a corner lot. That doesn't mean we don't sometimes wish we had one. Also know that in newer, front range suburbs, lot sizes are not likely as large as you'd expect in suburban NJ - so often shorter driveways, less sidewalk.

Sadly in NJ and the East Coast, it does not matter where your driveway faces, because the weather here is dynamic and unpredictable, while the West has more predictable weather patterns.

Anyways, in terms of what place in CO I am talking about, let's just assume somewhere cheap (like CO Springs).

[maciesmom]

Originally Posted by potanta

sadly in nj and the east coast, it does not matter where your driveway faces, because the weather here is dynamic and unpredictable, while the west has more predictable weather patterns.

anyways, in terms of what place in co i am talking about, let's just assume somewhere cheap (like co springs).

lol

Some of the West. The Rocky Mountain West....not so much. Do a search in this forum about weather.

Case in point: Wednesday it was 75 and sunny, today it's 50 and overcast with snow expected later on. That is fairly "normal" spring weather throughout March and April and sometimes well into May.

If predictable weather is what you crave, this may not be a good fit.

[DurangoJoe]

Originally Posted by potanta

Sadly in NJ and the East Coast, it does not matter where your driveway faces, because the weather here is dynamic and unpredictable, while the West has more predictable weather patterns.

Anyways, in terms of what place in CO I am talking about, let's just assume somewhere cheap (like CO Springs).

Oh my. You need to do some weather research on Colorado to truly understand it. Colorado has many "micro climates" due to the tremendous variation in altitude & topography so it's really necessary to understand where in Colorado in order to answer your question. Living at high altitude in such a low humidity environment means we get high winds fairly often, and with the dryness, that oftentimes brings lots of dust. On windy summer days, you can look off in the distance and everything looks hazy..... that's actually dust. During many summers we get large amounts of dust from Arizona & Utah. BTW, we had a record amount of snow this year down where I live. Not uncommon to see 15-18" snowfalls during December & January. The front range can see dangerous hail storms as well as surprise snow storms that will quickly dump 6-8" of snow. The rockies impact nearly all of the weather in the state in some way.

I lived on the east coast for 60 years before moving to SW Colorado. Colorado weather is by far, much more unstable & unpredictable than New Jersey. The high altitudes & Rocky Mountains simply make that a fact of life here.

[bluescreen73]

I had a small electric snowblower for the first 2-3 years after we moved back. It worked ok for about 1/3-1/2 of the snowstorms we got. If the snow was more than 3-4" deep or wet it was totally useless. On top of that it didn't clean the driveway down to the concrete and the rubber blade wore out after a couple seasons of use.

We ended up buying a real snowblower a couple years ago, and have only used it a handful of times. I honestly don't mind shoveling most of the time.

Originally Posted by potanta

Sadly in NJ and the East Coast, it does not matter where your driveway faces, because the weather here is dynamic and unpredictable, while the West has more predictable weather patterns.

The weather on the Front Range and Eastern Plains is hardly predictable. 48 hours ago Denver was in the low 70s. Today it's cloudy and raw, and we could get 2-4" of snow tonight. Never fear, though, it's supposed to be near 60 again by Monday.

[Gorges]

We've had a small electric blower for the past 3 years and only used it a few times. DH swears the snow here is easy to shovel and is nothing like the east-coast dumps. There's been more snow this year, but he's still preferred to handle it with a shovel. I can't say our blower has even been tested in wet heavy snow. We're lucky that our HOA takes care of the sidewalks and the sun often takes care of the driveway if we just give it a little help.