Ice dam risk in Freeport, NY

Ice dams in Freeport, NY: how often

3.9 dam days a winter

Low risk. On an ordinary house in Freeport, conditions for an ice dam come on about 3.9 days in a normal winter, mostly in February and January.

Freeport averages 26 inches of snow a year and about 20 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 Freeport

Attic	Dam days	Risk
Air-sealed and well insulated	3.1	Low
Typical, some insulation, not air-sealed	3.9	Low
Older or poorly insulated, warm attic	4.9	Low

The attic matters less in Freeport than in colder towns: there are only 0.8 days a winter between a typical attic and a sealed one.

Preventing ice dams on a Freeport 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.

Freeport winter, month by month

Month	Snow (in)	Days on ground	Dam days
January	5.7	6.2	1.4
February	7.6	7.3	1.5
March	4.8	3.3	0.4
April	1.0	0.2	0.0
November	0.2	0.2	0.0
December	6.2	2.8	0.5

Freeport next to nearby towns

Freeport ranks 78 of 90 New York cities here for ice-dam days, behind Utica at 46.1 days.

Rockville Centre, NY 3 mi, 3.9 days
Hempstead, NY 4 mi, 3.9 days
East Rockaway, NY 4 mi, 3.9 days
Lynbrook, NY 5 mi, 3.9 days
Garden City, NY 6 mi, 3.9 days

Where these numbers come from

NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals from Oceanside, 2.5 miles from Freeport. 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.