SnowWatt

Snow zone — ND · SD · MT-east · MN-west · NE-north

Heated driveways and snow-melting mats in the Northern Plains (Dakotas, eastern MT, western MN)

Snowfall normals, electricity rates and melt-capability figures for the Northern Plains (Dakotas, eastern MT, western MN), computed from NOAA and EIA data.

This page is data only — the written analysis has not been through editorial review yet, so it is marked noindex until it has.

Climate normals

Annual snowfall
51.2 in
Snow days ≥ 1 in
14.6
Season length
39 wk
Electricity
12.29¢

51.2 in a year at Bismarck, ND — NOAA GHCN-Daily, 1991-2020 normals. Electricity: Unweighted mean of the January 2026 EIA residential price for ND, SD, NE, MT.

Will a mat keep up here?

Melt capability against this zone's snowfall

Melt gauge — HeatTrak HR20-60 in Northern Plains (Dakotas, eastern MT, western MN)

  1. ≥ 0.1 in45.2 d/yr3 min
  2. ≥ 1 in14.6 d/yr30 min
  3. ≥ 3 in4.6 d/yr1.5 h
  4. ≥ 5 in1.8 d/yr2.5 h
  5. ≥ 10 in0.3 d/yr5.0 h
Design day
5 in
Clears in
2.5 h
Running per year
26 h
Melt rate (claimed)
2 in/hr
Marginal

A 5 in day clears in 2.5 h, but normal snowfall means about 26 h of running a year.

  • The melt rate is the manufacturer's claim, not a measurement. SnowWatt has not operated this product. Every portable mat on the market quotes the same 2 in/hr, which makes it a marketing constant rather than a differentiator.
  • Clear time assumes continuous running on a mat that starts clear. It is the time to melt that much accumulation, not a storm-duration model, and it does not account for drifting, refreeze, or snow arriving while the mat works.
  • The design day is a 30-year normal, not a forecast. 51.2 in a year at Bismarck, ND (NOAA GHCN-Daily, 1991-2020), the largest daily threshold crossed at least once a year. Your worst day will be worse.

What it costs to run

Running cost — Northern Plains (Dakotas, eastern MT, western MN)

Power draw
300 VA
Per design-day storm
$0.09
Per normal season
$0.94
Electricity
12.29¢
  • HeatTrak does not publish a wattage for this product. The figure above is SnowWatt's own arithmetic — 120 V × 2.5 A — and it is apparent power in VA, not a measured wattage. HeatTrak states no tolerance on this figure, which is not the same as a tolerance of zero — treat the cost below as an order of magnitude, not a quote. Treat it as an upper bound on real power, and see the methodology page for why we will not print it as watts.
  • Hours come from the melt gauge above: 2.5 h to clear the design-day accumulation, and about 26 h a year to keep pace with normal snowfall. Both assume continuous running and no idling, standby or preheat — so the season figure is a floor, not a forecast.
  • Electricity at 12.29¢/kWh (USD). Unweighted mean of the January 2026 EIA residential price for ND, SD, NE, MT.

The same figures for an embedded system, which publishes a real wattage and so can be costed exactly:

Running cost — Northern Plains (Dakotas, eastern MT, western MN)

Power draw
1500 W
Per design-day storm
—
Per normal season
—
Electricity
12.29¢
  • Power draw is the manufacturer's published rating of 1500 W.
  • Electricity at 12.29¢/kWh (USD). Unweighted mean of the January 2026 EIA residential price for ND, SD, NE, MT.

Sources

Cheapest electricity of any zone on the site (North Dakota at 10.92 cents in January 2026), which changes the mats-vs-embedded break-even more than the snowfall does. Blowing and drifting snow is the dominant problem here and no mat addresses it — that belongs in the copy.

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