SnowWatt

Snow zone — CA-mountain · OR-cascades · WA-cascades · NV-tahoe

Heated driveways and snow-melting mats in the Sierra Nevada & Cascade Mountain Communities

Snowfall normals, electricity rates and melt-capability figures for the Sierra Nevada & Cascade Mountain Communities, 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
184.9 in
Snow days ≥ 1 in
35.9
Season length
44 wk
Electricity
18.19¢

184.9 in a year at Tahoe City, CA — NOAA GHCN-Daily, 1991-2020 normals. Electricity: Unweighted mean of the January 2026 EIA residential price for CA, OR, WA, NV.

Will a mat keep up here?

Melt capability against this zone's snowfall

Melt gauge — HeatTrak HR20-60 in Sierra Nevada & Cascade Mountain Communities

  1. ≥ 0.1 in39.2 d/yr3 min
  2. ≥ 1 in35.9 d/yr30 min
  3. ≥ 3 in20.8 d/yr1.5 h
  4. ≥ 5 in13.2 d/yr2.5 h
  5. ≥ 10 in5.6 d/yr5.0 h
Design day
10 in
Clears in
5.0 h
Running per year
92 h
Melt rate (claimed)
2 in/hr
Overwhelmed

Roughly 92 h of running a year before the mat has kept pace with normal snowfall.

  • 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. 184.9 in a year at Tahoe City, CA (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 — Sierra Nevada & Cascade Mountain Communities

Power draw
300 VA
Per design-day storm
$0.27
Per normal season
$5.04
Electricity
18.19¢
  • 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: 5.0 h to clear the design-day accumulation, and about 92 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 18.19¢/kWh (USD). Unweighted mean of the January 2026 EIA residential price for CA, OR, WA, NV.

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

Running cost — Sierra Nevada & Cascade Mountain Communities

Power draw
1500 W
Per design-day storm
—
Per normal season
—
Electricity
18.19¢
  • Power draw is the manufacturer's published rating of 1500 W.
  • Electricity at 18.19¢/kWh (USD). Unweighted mean of the January 2026 EIA residential price for CA, OR, WA, NV.

Sources

Extreme zone: 184.9 in a year at Tahoe City, 35.9 days over an inch, 5.6 days over ten inches, and a season that runs September to June. Portable mats are out of their depth here on volume alone; this zone exists mainly to send readers to embedded systems and to say so plainly. Crater Lake (482.5 in) is included as the upper bound, not as a residential reference.

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