Ice dam risk in Crossville, TN
How often ice dams form in Crossville
2.6 dam days a winter
Low risk. On an ordinary house in Crossville, conditions for an ice dam come on about 2.6 days in a normal winter, mostly in January and February.
Crossville averages 14 inches of snow a year and about 14 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 Crossville
| Attic | Dam days | Risk |
|---|---|---|
| Air-sealed and well insulated | 2.0 | Low |
| Typical, some insulation, not air-sealed | 2.6 | Low |
| Older or poorly insulated, warm attic | 3.5 | Low |
The attic matters less in Crossville than in colder towns: there are only 0.6 days a winter between a typical attic and a sealed one.
Preventing ice dams on a Crossville 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.
Crossville winter, month by month
| Month | Snow (in) | Days on ground | Dam days |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 3.5 | 5.3 | 1.2 |
| February | 4.4 | 3.9 | 0.8 |
| March | 2.7 | 1.4 | 0.2 |
| April | 0.2 | 0.1 | 0.0 |
| November | 0.2 | 0.1 | 0.0 |
| December | 3.1 | 2.7 | 0.5 |
Crossville next to nearby towns
Crossville ranks 1 of 65 Tennessee cities here for ice-dam days, the worst in the state.
- Cookeville, TN 30 mi, 2.2 days
- Oak Ridge, TN 41 mi, 0.6 days
- Athens, TN 42 mi, 0.3 days
- Lenoir City, TN 43 mi, 0.3 days
- McMinnville, TN 46 mi, 0.5 days
Where these numbers come from
NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals from Crossville Ed & Research, 7.1 miles from Crossville. 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.