Ice dam risk in Cedar City, UT

Ice dams in Cedar City, UT: how often

5.0 dam days a winter

Moderate risk. On an ordinary house in Cedar City, conditions for an ice dam come on about 5.0 days in a normal winter, mostly in February and December.

Cedar City averages 60 inches of snow a year and about 21 days with snow on the ground. Plenty falls, but it tends to melt off between storms, which keeps the count lower than the snowfall suggests. That gap is why snowfall alone misleads.

What your attic does to that number in Cedar City

Attic	Dam days	Risk
Air-sealed and well insulated	3.9	Low
Typical, some insulation, not air-sealed	5.0	Moderate
Older or poorly insulated, warm attic	6.4	Moderate

The attic matters less in Cedar City 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 Cedar City roof

Rake the bottom three or four feet of roof after any storm that leaves more than about six inches, from the ground with a roof rake.

Cedar City winter, month by month

Month	Snow (in)	Days on ground	Dam days
January	9.5	5.1	1.4
February	10.6	5.9	1.4
March	12.3	2.3	0.4
April	5.6	0.8	0.1
May	1.4	0.0	0.0
October	0.9	0.1	0.0
November	6.1	1.5	0.3
December	13.2	5.6	1.5

Cedar City next to nearby towns

Cedar City ranks 63 of 67 Utah cities here for ice-dam days, behind Ogden at 37.2 days.

Hurricane, UT 40 mi, 0.1 days
Washington, UT 44 mi, 0.0 days
Ivins, UT 48 mi, 0.0 days
St. George, UT 50 mi, 0.0 days
Mesquite, NV 83 mi, 0.0 days

Where these numbers come from

NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals from Cedar City, 1.4 miles from Cedar City. 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.