Ice dam risk in Beachwood, NJ

Ice dams in Beachwood, NJ: how often

4.2 dam days a winter

Low risk. On an ordinary house in Beachwood, conditions for an ice dam come on about 4.2 days in a normal winter, mostly in February and January.

Beachwood averages 10 inches of snow a year and about 24 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 Beachwood

Attic	Dam days	Risk
Air-sealed and well insulated	3.1	Low
Typical, some insulation, not air-sealed	4.2	Low
Older or poorly insulated, warm attic	5.7	Moderate

The attic matters less in Beachwood than in colder towns: there are only 1.1 days a winter between a typical attic and a sealed one.

Preventing ice dams on a Beachwood 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.

Beachwood winter, month by month

Month	Snow (in)	Days on ground	Dam days
January	3.9	7.6	1.7
February	4.6	8.8	1.8
March	0.8	4.0	0.4
December	0.9	2.9	0.4

Beachwood next to nearby towns

Beachwood ranks 95 of 116 New Jersey cities here for ice-dam days, behind Hopatcong at 14.7 days.

Point Pleasant, NJ 12 mi, 5.4 days
Asbury Park, NJ 23 mi, 3.2 days
Freehold, NJ 23 mi, 5.4 days
Tinton Falls, NJ 24 mi, 6.2 days
Eatontown, NJ 26 mi, 3.2 days

Where these numbers come from

NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals from Brant Beach-Beach Haven, 25.2 miles from Beachwood. 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.

Snow-on-the-ground counts come from a second, nearby station, because the closest one does not record them.
The weather station is 25 miles away, far enough that local snow can differ.