The tools
Why you should trust us
To determine the essentials to have on hand in preparation for a snowstorm, Wirecutter senior staff writer Doug Mahoney spoke with meteorologist Brian Donegan, when Brian worked for The Weather Channel’s weather.com. Doug also relied on his own extensive experience with snow, having grown up in Vermont at the end of a 2-mile dirt road, where his family sometimes waited days for the town plow to make it to their home. He’s also spent forty-seven winters in New England, living near Boston during the winter of 2014–15, when the city received a record-breaking 110.6 inches of snow over a six-week period…
The tools
Why you should trust us
To determine the essentials to have on hand in preparation for a snowstorm, Wirecutter senior staff writer Doug Mahoney spoke with meteorologist Brian Donegan, when Brian worked for The Weather Channel’s weather.com. Doug also relied on his own extensive experience with snow, having grown up in Vermont at the end of a 2-mile dirt road, where his family sometimes waited days for the town plow to make it to their home. He’s also spent forty-seven winters in New England, living near Boston during the winter of 2014–15, when the city received a record-breaking 110.6 inches of snow over a six-week period. In other words, Doug has dealt with all kinds of snow and experienced quite a few ice storms, two of which pulled the power lines right off his house and left him in the dark for a week each time. As the author of Wirecutter’s guides to snow shovels and snow blowers, he’s versed in the more technical elements of snow removal (he also assisted with ice-scraper testing). And he researched and wrote a guide to the best sleds, which he says is as fun as it sounds.
The biggest concern with a snow or ice storm is a power outage, because unless you have a wood stove, standby generator, or another backup option, that can mean a total loss of heat. That can be uncomfortable and potentially dangerous. And, as Donegan explained, “Your pipes can freeze, and you have a huge mess on your hands.” (Make that a costly mess.) We’ve got a section with tips on how to prevent frozen pipes, and a few of the items on our list will help, but there will be times when even the best efforts fall short. When you have no options for bringing heat into the house, you’ll likely want to shut off your water and drain your pipes. If you don’t know how to do that, this article from Benjamin Franklin Plumbing describes the process.
If ice scrapers and shovels are in your near future, we also suggest that you take a page from The Long Winter, by Laura Ingalls Wilder, and check in with neighbors ahead of time to see who might need assistance. “There was a sense of community in sharing and recognizing who was in greatest need that I don’t know if we see as much in modern society,” said Barb Mayes Boustead, PhD, a meteorologist and author of Wilder Weather, a book about the historical weather conditions Ingalls Wilder wrote about.
We have a general guide to emergency preparedness, which covers items such as food, water, and first-aid kits, as well as recommendations focused on extended power outages. We highly recommend consulting those lists to make sure you have the essentials for your family during disasters. Consider this list to be an add-on to those basics, geared toward the specific needs of preparing for a snowstorm. We’ve also included a few extra suggestions to help you have a little fun along the way.
Lighting
Rozette Rago/NYT Wirecutter
Lantern
Top pick
With power outages likely and the sun setting as early as 4 p.m., independent lighting is very important in a winter storm. After 35 hours of testing, we found the UST 60-Day Duro Lantern to be the best tabletop lantern. It’s versatile: You can hold it by the handle on top, like a creepy old innkeeper; attach it to a carabiner (there’s a loop on the base for additional hanging options); or simply set it on a table or the ground. This lantern is the brightest we tested by far, and it has a sturdy hard-plastic shell with grippy side strips that help prevent it from slipping out of your hand.
The 60-Day Duro runs off of six D batteries, which is a lot, but on the lowest of the three brightness settings, the lamp can stay lit for a stunning 60 days. That may not be bright enough for some tasks—like preparing food or checking on the basement pipes—but during an outage, it was comforting to know we could drop to the low setting for simple tasks, or just to get some light in a room, without significantly diminishing the battery life.
If the 60-Day Duro is out of the budget, UST also offers the 30-Day Duro, which is the same, but smaller; it takes three D batteries, isn’t as bright, and the lowest setting lasts 30-days.
Headlamp
Marki Williams/NYT Wirecutter
Top pick
The advantage of a headlamp is that it frees your hands for other tasks, such as shoveling snow, preparing food, or carrying a child up to bed. Our favorite is the Black Diamond Spot 400, with top buttons that are intuitive to use (you’ll need to experiment with clicking through various configurations, but we think the learning curve is fairly quick).
The Spot 400 offers both a red-light option (good for when you’re switching it on and off at night) and a strobe option, for emergency signaling. Its PowerTap technology lets you instantly transition the headlamp from full power to dimmed with one touch, and it weighs a decently lightweight 3 ounces with batteries installed. The Spot 400 uses three AAA batteries, so be sure to have extras on hand.
Traditional flashlights are also useful, and we like the ThruNite Archer 2A V3. It has a wide range of brightness settings—from 500 lumens all the way down to an ultra-dim 0.5 lumen—so it’s as effective in lighting the path to the shed as it is in helping you check on a sleeping child.
Snow shovel
Doug Mahoney/NYT Wirecutter
Top pick
We’ve been testing snow shovels since 2013, and our favorite is the True Temper 18-inch Ergonomic Mountain Mover. It has a sturdy scoop as well as a large, glove-friendly D-handle and a curved shaft that is easier on the back than a traditional straight shaft. For even better ergonomics, we recommend pairing the True Temper with the EziMate BackEZ, an add-on handle attachment that lets you stand straighter and makes shoveling easier all around—which is even more important when a winter storm keeps dumping and dumping.
Even with the curved shaft and added handle, be very careful shoveling—especially if your body is not used to that kind of exertion. As meteorologist Brian Donegan noted, every year there are cases of people having heart attacks and even dying just from shoveling snow. His advice: “Shovel multiple times, and not the entire storm at once.”
Donegan also recommends a separate, small shovel for the car. We tested those tools and recommend the Voilé Telepro, a heavy-duty shovel that you can break down into three pieces for easy storage. Most of the models we saw marketed as car shovels were cheap and flimsy, and not the kind of tool we would want to rely on in an emergency.
If you have a large area to clear, we have recommendations for snow blowers too.
Ice scraper
Michael Hession/NYT Wirecutter
Top pick
The best ice scraper
Hopkins SubZero 80037
The Hopkins SubZero 80037 is great for digging out your car after the storm. It’s durable and easy to use, and it extends to about 5 feet, so it works with any size vehicle.
Clearing a walkway and driveway that have been buried by a winter storm is just a start — now you’ve got to get your car uncovered. Using a snow shovel for the task will scratch your paint (don’t ask us how we know that). After testing ice scrapers since 2015, we recommend the Hopkins SubZero 80037. Its broom head extends from 3¼ feet all the way to 5 feet, so it’s great for shoving snow off a car roof and for clearing odd areas such as around the side-view mirrors and into the wiper valley. We found the Hopkins SubZero 80037 to be more effective than the competition due to deep ice-gouging teeth on the back that proved adept at breaking up the really thick stuff, like after an ice storm. It also offers the best broom head of any scraper in our test group, stores easily, and has buttons that are very easy to use even when you have gloves on.
Ice melt
Top pick
Best for...
A slip-and-fall injury is no way to commemorate the biggest snow storm of the season, especially when ice and snow could impede a drive to a hospital. Laying down ice melt on your walkways and driveways can stop ice from forming in wet and freezing conditions. There are several ice melt formulations on the market, and most are a form of salt (hence the “chloride” present in most ingredient lists).
The simplest and most widely available—and the cheapest—is sodium chloride, which is the same chemical formula as table salt. You can get a 50-pound bag from Snow Joe for less than $10, but sodium chloride has some drawbacks. It’s corrosive to concrete and metal, it can kill plantlife, and it can cause burns on pet paws. Still, if you have a long driveway or a large stretch of sidewalk to de-ice, it’s likely your most economical option.
For an option safer on paws, plants, and property, turn to magnesium chloride, which is generally less corrosive. Per the ASPCA, it’s considered safer for pets, though it can still cause gastrointestinal distress, so try to limit exposure. Magnesium chloride works better than sodium chloride in colder temperatures—down to about 0 degrees Fahrenheit, compared to sodium chloride’s 20 degrees Fahrenheit. The trade off is that you’ll pay a premium.
Other common formulations include calcium chloride (super effective in sub-zero temperatures but not pet-safe) and salt-free options (the most pet friendly, but generally less effective and way more expensive). Which chemical composition you opt for will ultimately come down to your needs, but whichever you choose, your mail carrier will thank you.
Roof rake
Doug Mahoney/NYT Wirecutter
Top pick
If you have a home with suspect insulation, you should have a roof rake. The danger of not having one is that snow sitting on your roof will start melting from below due to heat escaping from your home; that melt then flows down the roof and freezes at the eave, and this frozen mass builds up until it forces water under your shingles and into your walls. The best way to combat this problem, other than costly reinsulating, is by pulling the snow off with a roof rake. Our favorite is the True Temper Telescoping Roof Rake. Most other roof rakes are a single length, making them awkward during use and nearly impossible to store in a satisfying way. The True Temper extends to 17 feet but can shorten to about 8. The telescoping handle slides freely even in subzero temperatures, and the release buttons are big and easy to use.
Another option is to run a heat cable along your eaves, but this setup shuts down when the power goes out, and in our experience such systems can be unreliable.
Generator
Top pick
The biggest consequence of a power outage caused by a winter storm is that it’ll leave you without heat. This can quickly lead to frozen pipes, but a portable generator used in conjunction with a space heater can help prevent this problem.
We think the best generator to get you through a few days without power is the Westinghouse iGen5000DFc. The midrange model provides 5,000 starting watts and 3,900 running watts when fueled with gasoline. It’s a dual-fuel model, so you can also use propane — nice when gas may be hard to access post-storm — but you’ll sacrifice some wattage. Still, it’s enough generator to power the basics and most small appliances. At this size, you can even start to consider tying it directly to your breaker box to power a circuit or two.
The Westinghouse meets all of our baseline generator requirements: It has an inverter to protect sensitive electronics, it’s a closed-frame model for quieter operation, and it has a CO detector which shuts the engine down if it senses unsafe levels of carbon monoxide. This model also features a remote start which we don’t often see on generators in this price range—something you’ll really appreciate when it saves you from trekking through the snow to start the unit.
Even with the CO detection safety feature, you must run a gas generator outdoors (even in a garage is dangerous). “Every year I see stories about people that got carbon monoxide poisoning and end up dying from running the generator inside,” meteorologist Brian Donegan told us. So if you’re running inside items with your outside generator, you’ll also need a quality extension cord.
A smaller power station like the EcoFlow River 2 Pro offers another way to keep some lights on. The upside is that it’s much more portable than the Westinghouse and you don’t need to deal with the gas, noise, and exhaust of a generator. The downsides are that it doesn’t have as much power and lasts only as long as the battery charge (though in our tests, the EcoFlow River 2 Pro powered a room fan for eight hours).The River 2 Pro also has a pure sine-wave inverter, so it can power sensitive electronics such as CPAP machines, but many items with an open heating element that are useful for a winter storm, like space heaters and electric kettles, are a no-go, as they can overheat quickly and catch fire when plugged into a portable power station.
Warm clothing
Michael Hession/NYT Wirecutter
Budget pick
If you’re planning to be outside shoveling or sledding, you’ll need clothes that can handle the cold. And even if you aren’t planning on braving the elements, having a mix of insulating layers can go a long way towards getting you through a cold spell, especially if you’re concerned about outages.
Gloves are essential, particularly if you are your property’s designated snow shoveler. The North Face Montana Ski Gloves are warm, water-resistant, and touchscreen compatible, allowing you to text your family for backup as needed.
We’ve tested the best thermal underwear, as well as socks that you can tailor to your preferred level of warmth or activity. Moving to the outer layers, we’ve covered more than 300 miles swaddled in coats to crown our top picks. You’ll also need a great pair of snow boots to keep your feet dry. Since there are many sartorial options, we suggest checking out our guide to the best winter boots to pick the style you like best.
Even if you’ve done your best to bundle up, make sure you’re monitoring your exposure to the cold. Learn the signs of frostbite and hypothermia and the steps to take if you or your loved ones start exhibiting symptoms.
Space heater
Michael Hession/NYT Wirecutter
Top pick
The best space heater
Vornado VH200
Bring heat to a room, or your pipes, with the Vornado VH200. In our tests, it heated a space faster than any other heater we tried. It’s quiet, and it automatically shuts off if it gets tipped over.
Once your generator is up and running, it’s time to think about using a space heater to keep warm and help prevent frozen pipes. We tested 75 space heaters, and our favorite is the Vornado VH200. It heated a room faster and more evenly than any other heater we found; it’s also quieter than most, compact, and designed to shut off if it gets tipped over. The Vornado typically costs about $60 or $70, so if you’re just looking for a cheaper heater to put in the basement, we also like the Lasko 754200 Ceramic Heater, which usually goes for about $40. It doesn’t have tip protection like the Vornado, and it produces a much more narrow stream of heat, but it does warm an area quickly. If you’re running a space heater on our Westinghouse iGen5000DFc pick, we recommend keeping it on a low setting so as not to overload the generator.
Sled
Doug Mahoney/NYT Wirecutter
Top pick
The best sled
L.L.Bean Sonic Snow Tube
Have a little fun after the storm with the L.L.Bean Sonic Snow Tube. It’s the fastest and most comfortable sled we tested. The tow rope makes it easy to pull up to the top of the hill.
Okay, so the essentials are taken care of and you can hear the plow trucks in the distance. It’s time to relax a little and enjoy the snow. If you have a hill in your backyard or a nearby place you can go, we recommend taking the L.L.Bean Sonic Snow Tube with you. We asked 12 kids and three adults to test 21 sleds, and the L.L.Bean tube was the unanimous favorite. The hard-shell bottom offered the smoothest and fastest ride, while the tow rope made the tube easy to pull back to the hilltop, even for the little kids. At over $120, it’s expensive, but the durable build combined with the sheer joy it brings may make it worth the investment for anyone anticipating a lot of snow days this winter. If you’re devoted to plastic toboggans, we have a recommendation for those too.
Board games
Sarah Kobos/NYT Wirecutter
Top pick
When the sledding is done, it’s time to kick back with a good board game. All of our testers, including some serious board gamers, said they would happily buy Wingspan, a fun strategy game with an avian theme. Our testers were impressed with the beauty of the game, including the little egg pieces and the illustrations on the cards, which are also available as prints. Wingspan is good for one to five players, ages 10 and up. We have a bunch more suggestions for smart, engaging games in our guide to board games we love and our guide to beginner board games for adults. We also have suggestions for kids board games, many of which are fun for the entire family, and a guide to two-player board games for couples or roommates.
Slippers
Sarah Kobos/NYT Wirecutter
Top pick
With dropping temps and power outages come cold toesies. You can prevent those with L.L.Bean’s Wicked Good Moccasins (women’s, men’s), the coziest, warmest slippers of the 39 pairs we tried. One tester even said they felt like “a warm hug for your feet.” The L.L.Bean slippers stood out with the best combination of comfort, durability, and price. They have a rubbery outsole, so you may not even need to take them off to run outside to check the generator gas. We also like their strong support and how they keep their original shape over time, with some pairs going strong after five years of use. So when you put your feet up after all that shoveling, at least they’ll be cozy and warm.
Blanket
Michael Hession/NYT Wirecutter
Top pick
The coziest blanket
Garnet Hill Plush-Loft Blanket
This super-plush quilted blanket feels warmer and softer (at least on one side) than any other blanket we tested (it’s what we’d grab on a sick day). It’s more than durable enough to withstand kids and pets.
Having some extra blankets tossed around creates a homey winter vibe and can help warm up chilled shovelers, sledders, and pets in a pinch. We like the Garnet Hill Plush-Loft Blanket for its warmth, breathability, and durability. It’s available as a throw to drape across your couch or full-sized to use as an extra layer under a comforter, as one of our testers does to get through Maine winters. We’ve found it holds up even after repeated washes, though you’ll want to allocate some extra time to let the thick material dry.
How to prevent frozen pipes
Checking on the state of your pipes with the Fluke Raytek RAYMTU4 Non-Contact Thermometer (or the Klein IR1 Infrared Thermometer) during a storm is smart but there are other actions you can take to help avoid a burst pipe and potential flooding disaster. Kitchens are particularly susceptible since they’re often located against the outside wall of a house, with pipes feeding the sink and dishwasher. If the temperature outside is going to dip below freezing, keep the cupboard doors beneath your sink open to let in warmth from the room. Same with the dishwasher door. It can also help to remove the dishwasher toe kick, if it has one. Anything to get warm air around the rear plumbing.
Another simple trick is to just leave the faucet running at a drip. This is most important at night when the sink won’t be used for an extended period of time. Moving water, even slightly moving water, takes a lot longer to freeze than standing water. It’s important to make sure your trickle includes water from both the hot and cold pipes. So if you have a single lever faucet, set it right at the center. If your hot and cold have separate handles, turn them both on just a little.
If your kitchen doesn’t get a lot of heat, also consider setting up a space heater on the floor aimed at the open cabinet doors for extra measure. During a recent deep freeze in the northeast, two Wirecutter staffers experienced water freezing inside dishwashers. In one case, the editor knew it could have been avoided if he’d only remembered to open the door before bedtime.
This article was edited by Joshua Lyon and Harry Sawyers.