Ice dam risk in Burley, ID
How often ice dams form in Burley
3.1 dam days a winter
Low risk. On an ordinary house in Burley, conditions for an ice dam come on about 3.1 days in a normal winter, mostly in January and December.
Burley averages 21 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 Burley
| Attic | Dam days | Risk |
|---|---|---|
| Air-sealed and well insulated | 2.1 | Low |
| Typical, some insulation, not air-sealed | 3.1 | Low |
| Older or poorly insulated, warm attic | 4.5 | Low |
The attic matters less in Burley than in colder towns: there are only 1.0 day a winter between a typical attic and a sealed one.
Preventing ice dams on a Burley 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.
Burley winter, month by month
| Month | Snow (in) | Days on ground | Dam days |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 6.7 | 5.3 | 1.6 |
| February | 4.2 | 1.7 | 0.4 |
| March | 1.2 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| April | 0.5 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| October | 0.7 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| November | 2.6 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| December | 4.6 | 3.4 | 1.0 |
Burley next to nearby towns
Burley ranks 20 of 26 Idaho cities here for ice-dam days, behind Rexburg at 42.8 days.
- Twin Falls, ID 34 mi, 17.0 days
- Jerome, ID 39 mi, 17.0 days
- Pocatello, ID 71 mi, 9.4 days
- Chubbuck, ID 73 mi, 20.8 days
- Blackfoot, ID 86 mi, 20.1 days
Where these numbers come from
NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals from Minidoka Dam, 17.6 miles from Burley. 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.
- No nearby station records snow lying on the ground, so those days are estimated from snowfall and temperature.