Ice dam risk in Glen Cove, NY

Will your roof get ice dams in Glen Cove, NY?

7.5 dam days a winter

Moderate risk. On an ordinary house in Glen Cove, conditions for an ice dam come on about 7.5 days in a normal winter, mostly in February and January.

Glen Cove averages 19 inches of snow a year and about 39 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 Glen Cove

Attic	Dam days	Risk
Air-sealed and well insulated	5.7	Moderate
Typical, some insulation, not air-sealed	7.5	Moderate
Older or poorly insulated, warm attic	9.8	Moderate

The attic matters less in Glen Cove than in colder towns: there are only 1.8 days a winter between a typical attic and a sealed one.

Preventing ice dams on a Glen Cove 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.

Glen Cove winter, month by month

Month	Snow (in)	Days on ground	Dam days
January	2.9	12.6	2.9
February	6.2	12.8	2.8
March	3.1	6.5	0.7
April	0.4	0.2	0.0
November	0.2	0.2	0.0
December	5.7	6.8	1.1

Glen Cove next to nearby towns

Glen Cove ranks 71 of 90 New York cities here for ice-dam days, behind Utica at 46.1 days.

Rye, NY 5 mi, 8.7 days
Mamaroneck, NY 6 mi, 8.7 days
Great Neck, NY 7 mi, 4.2 days
New Rochelle, NY 8 mi, 8.7 days
Port Chester, NY 8 mi, 8.7 days

Where these numbers come from

NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals from Mineola, 10.6 miles from Glen Cove. 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.