Ice dam risk in Mount Airy, NC
Will your roof get ice dams in Mount Airy, NC?
1.1 dam days a winter
Low risk. On an ordinary house in Mount Airy, conditions for an ice dam come on about 1.1 days in a normal winter, mostly in January and February.
Mount Airy averages 8 inches of snow a year and about 5 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 Mount Airy
| Attic | Dam days | Risk |
|---|---|---|
| Air-sealed and well insulated | 1.0 | Very unlikely |
| Typical, some insulation, not air-sealed | 1.1 | Low |
| Older or poorly insulated, warm attic | 1.2 | Low |
The attic matters less in Mount Airy than in colder towns: there are only 0.1 days a winter between a typical attic and a sealed one.
What to do about ice dams in Mount Airy
- 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.
Mount Airy winter, month by month
| Month | Snow (in) | Days on ground | Dam days |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 3.1 | 2.1 | 0.5 |
| February | 2.2 | 2.1 | 0.4 |
| March | 1.2 | 0.2 | 0.0 |
| December | 1.7 | 0.9 | 0.2 |
Mount Airy next to nearby towns
Mount Airy ranks 7 of 91 North Carolina cities here for ice-dam days, behind Boone at 4.9 days.
- Lewisville, NC 30 mi, 1.2 days
- Winston-Salem, NC 34 mi, 1.2 days
- Clemmons, NC 35 mi, 1.2 days
- Kernersville, NC 41 mi, 0.8 days
- Radford, VA 42 mi, 4.3 days
Where these numbers come from
NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals from Mt Airy 2 W, 2.3 miles from Mount Airy. 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 Mount Airy, so the snow figures may run high or low for the town itself.