On April 17, a fan in Syracuse, NY, wrote:

Our local news used the term ‘snowblowed.’ The sentence was something like … “many CNYer’s snowblowed their walkways several times today…” My question is other than saying …’many CNYer’s had to snowblow their walkways several times today...,’ is ‘snowblowed’ correct?

Snowblowed? Snowblew? In English, to form the past tense of a regular verb (that is, indicate that an event has occured in the past), we add the ending -ed. So if "snowblow" is a regular verb, "snowblowed" is correct. But "blow," is not a regular verb, its past tense being "blew." So should the past tense of "snowblow" be "snowblew"? Good question.

In fact, the problem here is not one of regular or irregular past tense. Instead, the problem is what is commonly referred to as "verbing a noun," that is, using a noun (remember? person, place, or thing) as a verb (action word). A "snowblower" is a thing, thus, a noun. "To snowblow" is the result of "verbification," turning a legitimate noun into an illegitimate verb. Sometimes, verbing a noun is useful; most often it is senseless and lazy. Unfortunately, many examples of unnecessary verbification have become common parlance: "email" (noun) to "email, emailing, emailed" (verb forms); "contact" (noun) to "contact, contacting, contacted" (verb forms); and "impact" (noun) to "impact, impacting, impacted" (verb forms)--oh, how I cringe at this last example! Verbification is generally lazy and results from an attempt to say something as quickly and efficiently as possible. I'm all for efficiency, don't get me wrong; but don't do it to the destruction of the English language! Nancy Allison has a clever (and lengthier) article on "nerbs," as she calls them, at http://www.stcboston.org/archives/articles/nouns.shtml.

So, no, to a classic grammarian, "snowblowed" is not correct, nor would be "snowblew" or any other verbification. I'd suggest, "Many CNY'ers [what the heck is a "CNY'er," anyway? the subject for another post, I'd say!] cleared their sidewalks with snowblowers several times today." Longer, yes, but so much more pleasant to the ear, wouldn't you say?

The most important element of this question, though, as I see it is what on earth you're doing living in a place where snowblowers are in use "several times" on April 17!