Ice dam risk in Carson, NV

Will your roof get ice dams in Carson, NV?

1.9 dam days a winter

Low risk. On an ordinary house in Carson, conditions for an ice dam come on about 1.9 days in a normal winter, mostly in January and December.

Carson averages 14 inches of snow a year and about 9 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 Carson

Attic	Dam days	Risk
Air-sealed and well insulated	1.7	Low
Typical, some insulation, not air-sealed	1.9	Low
Older or poorly insulated, warm attic	2.1	Low

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

What to do about ice dams in Carson

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.

Carson winter, month by month

Month	Snow (in)	Days on ground	Dam days
January	3.6	2.9	0.7
February	1.7	2.0	0.4
March	1.6	0.6	0.1
November	0.7	0.6	0.1
December	6.4	2.5	0.6

Carson next to nearby towns

Carson ranks 3 of 10 Nevada cities here for ice-dam days, behind Elko at 14.0 days.

South Lake Tahoe, CA 20 mi, 2.1 days
Truckee, CA 28 mi, 36.3 days
Reno, NV 28 mi, 3.1 days
Sparks, NV 29 mi, 1.3 days
Fernley, NV 41 mi, 0.4 days

Where these numbers come from

NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals from Carson City, 2.2 miles from Carson. 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.

The nearest weather station sits at a noticeably different elevation from Carson, so the snow figures may run high or low for the town itself.