Ice dam risk in Seymour, IN
Will your roof get ice dams in Seymour, IN?
5.0 dam days a winter
Moderate risk. On an ordinary house in Seymour, conditions for an ice dam come on about 5.0 days in a normal winter, mostly in January and February.
Seymour averages 8 inches of snow a year and about 19 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 Seymour
| Attic | Dam days | Risk |
|---|---|---|
| Air-sealed and well insulated | 3.1 | Low |
| Typical, some insulation, not air-sealed | 5.0 | Moderate |
| Older or poorly insulated, warm attic | 7.4 | Moderate |
The attic matters less in Seymour than in colder towns: there are only 1.9 days a winter between a typical attic and a sealed one.
Preventing ice dams on a Seymour 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.
Seymour winter, month by month
| Month | Snow (in) | Days on ground | Dam days |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 2.8 | 7.0 | 2.1 |
| February | 1.8 | 5.8 | 1.5 |
| March | 2.0 | 1.7 | 0.3 |
| October | 0.2 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| November | 0.1 | 0.2 | 0.0 |
| December | 1.1 | 4.6 | 1.2 |
Seymour next to nearby towns
Seymour ranks 77 of 88 Indiana cities here for ice-dam days, behind Plymouth at 15.9 days.
- Columbus, IN 18 mi, 4.8 days
- Madison, IN 29 mi, 3.3 days
- Bedford, IN 33 mi, 5.2 days
- Greensburg, IN 35 mi, 5.7 days
- Bloomington, IN 37 mi, 5.1 days
Where these numbers come from
NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals from Seymour 1 WSW, 1.0 miles from Seymour. 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.