IceDamCheck

Ice dam risk in Borger, TX

How often ice dams form in Borger

1.5 dam days a winter

Low risk. On an ordinary house in Borger, conditions for an ice dam come on about 1.5 days in a normal winter, mostly in January and December.

Borger averages 15 inches of snow a year and about 8 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 Borger

AtticDam daysRisk
Air-sealed and well insulated1.3Low
Typical, some insulation, not air-sealed1.5Low
Older or poorly insulated, warm attic1.8Low

The attic matters less in Borger than in colder towns: there are only 0.2 days a winter between a typical attic and a sealed one.

Preventing ice dams on a Borger roof

  1. 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.

Borger winter, month by month

MonthSnow (in)Days on groundDam days
January3.62.50.5
February1.91.60.3
March2.40.80.1
April0.60.10.0
October0.30.00.0
November2.20.70.1
December4.02.60.5

Borger next to nearby towns

Borger ranks 4 of 252 Texas cities here for ice-dam days, behind Pampa at 2.6 days.

Where these numbers come from

NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals from Borger, 0.7 miles from Borger. 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.