Ice dam risk in Amarillo, TX
Will your roof get ice dams in Amarillo, TX?
2.0 dam days a winter
Low risk. On an ordinary house in Amarillo, conditions for an ice dam come on about 2.0 days in a normal winter, mostly in January and December.
Amarillo averages 17 inches of snow a year and about 10 days with snow on the ground. Most of it comes and goes within a few days. The conditions that make a dam need all three at once: snow, cold at the eave and heat above it.
What your attic does to that number in Amarillo
| Attic | Dam days | Risk |
|---|---|---|
| Air-sealed and well insulated | 1.7 | Low |
| Typical, some insulation, not air-sealed | 2.0 | Low |
| Older or poorly insulated, warm attic | 2.3 | Low |
The attic matters less in Amarillo than in colder towns: there are only 0.3 days a winter between a typical attic and a sealed one.
Preventing ice dams on a Amarillo roof
- Check the gutters before the first snow and clear them, so meltwater has somewhere to go. If you see icicles thicker than a finger along the eave after a storm, that is the early sign to look at the attic.
Snowy places are not always the worst: why snowfall misleads.
Amarillo winter, month by month
| Month | Snow (in) | Days on ground | Dam days |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 4.0 | 2.7 | 0.6 |
| February | 3.5 | 2.3 | 0.5 |
| March | 1.9 | 0.7 | 0.1 |
| April | 0.5 | 0.1 | 0.0 |
| May | 0.2 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| October | 0.7 | 0.3 | 0.0 |
| November | 2.6 | 1.1 | 0.1 |
| December | 3.8 | 2.6 | 0.6 |
Amarillo next to nearby towns
Amarillo ranks 3 of 252 Texas cities here for ice-dam days, behind Pampa at 2.6 days.
- Canyon, TX 15 mi, 1.0 days
- Borger, TX 40 mi, 1.5 days
- Hereford, TX 41 mi, 2.5 days
- Dumas, TX 46 mi, 1.0 days
- Pampa, TX 54 mi, 2.6 days
Where these numbers come from
NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals from Amarillo, 7.2 miles from Amarillo. A dam day is a day with snow on the roof and freezing at the eave while heat or sun melts the snow above it. This describes a normal winter, not this one.