Ice dam risk in Ponca City, OK
Will your roof get ice dams in Ponca City, OK?
1.5 dam days a winter
Low risk. On an ordinary house in Ponca City, conditions for an ice dam come on about 1.5 days in a normal winter, mostly in December and January.
Ponca City averages 8 inches of snow a year and about 8 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 Ponca City
| Attic | Dam days | Risk |
|---|---|---|
| Air-sealed and well insulated | 1.2 | Low |
| Typical, some insulation, not air-sealed | 1.5 | Low |
| Older or poorly insulated, warm attic | 1.9 | Low |
The attic matters less in Ponca City than in colder towns: there are only 0.3 days a winter between a typical attic and a sealed one.
Preventing ice dams on a Ponca City 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.
Ponca City winter, month by month
| Month | Snow (in) | Days on ground | Dam days |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 2.0 | 2.0 | 0.5 |
| February | 1.7 | 1.7 | 0.3 |
| March | 1.4 | 0.9 | 0.1 |
| April | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.0 |
| November | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.0 |
| December | 2.6 | 2.9 | 0.6 |
Ponca City next to nearby towns
Ponca City ranks 5 of 45 Oklahoma cities here for ice-dam days, behind Woodward at 2.0 days.
- Arkansas City, KS 24 mi, 1.9 days
- Winfield, KS 36 mi, 2.0 days
- Stillwater, OK 41 mi, 0.4 days
- Enid, OK 50 mi, 1.7 days
- Derby, KS 59 mi, 2.8 days
Where these numbers come from
NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals from Blackwell 1SSW, 13.1 miles from Ponca 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.