Well Iv'e had my first snow drive in my 2014 Prius three and the car sucks in snow

Michelin X-Ice for me. No problems so far, getting around in up to a foot of snow.

 

Well, everything costs more in Canada, and now that our dollar is around 80 cents, I paid about $800 at the Toyota dealer to have them mounted on new rims and the old ones held in storage for a year.

 

For anyone buying X-Ice, it's a directional tire: it doesn't hurt to check the directional arrows before you drive off. Recently, Costco's finest kept me hanging around way past their eta and then gave me 3 rights and a left.

Plus, if you want more than the spec pressure you'll need to visit a gas station down the road.

 

Phillip, yes, studded tires are noisier on dry pavement and can only be used in NJ between November 15 and April 1.

 

From my experience several decades ago studded tires also offer inferior grip on wet roads but that may no longer be the case.

 

Wow, what a title, I'd lobby with the mods to change it.

Seems the majority of posts point out that the Prius has an excellent traction control system, just use studded snow tires.
With an F150 with all season tires and a Prius with snow tires my choice on icy roads 100% of the time is the studded snows.
But as has been pointed out, in 8" of snow, who's going where?

 

The road going through my town generally floods every time the river goes up. Once the water is over 6 inches deep there are no tires that can make driving 'safe' through it.

As far as shallow water on the pavement [of only 1 to 3 inches] I think the important factor becomes the tread design on the tire. How well the tire grooves can channel water, and reach down through the water to make contact with pavement underneath the water. Having studs on the tires has no bearing on ability to channel water. Besides studs are only legal during winter. In winter precipitation is mostly solid, not liquid.

 

I was referring to rain traction.
In much suburban/urban driving there's more wet driving than ice driving.

The studs do have an effect on the tire grip because some proportion of the tire load is supported by the steel studs, leaving a little less on the rubber tread.
Just about any comparison test out there bears this out.

 

…….and as predicted by me, NOT our regions wonderful (insert sarcasm) meteorologist, 3/4-1'' fell over the last 24 hrs!! The grass isn't even covered..

They had predictions as high as 12-18+'', multiple news channels, even on a natl. level were calling for snaowageddon! Sure weather can change, but this is not a 10 day future forecast here, it was 24 hrs notice, to screw up on that level is sad, and it seems to happen most every storm. They hype it all up, close schools, business, etc.. Epic Fail this time!!

so in other words I got home fine with my stock all seasons...

 

The news media here has gone crazy about this 'huge' storm. We will see. We have about a foot out there now, not an unusual amount for 6 hours into a snow storm. We will have to wait and see how much it gives us.

I just got my tractors started up, and I will go out after posting this, to blow our driveway clear and maybe check on neighbors. Our grid power is still on, which is unusual.

 

This is the first storm of the season that has dropped enough snow to cover the grass. We have maybe 2 inches. Over the first 6 hours it snowed here the grass was barely white. Weather prediction & reporting is either incompetence, hype, or both. My vote is both.

 

My mom's in suburban Boston and it isn't hype in their case.

 

We have about 8 inches of powder on our road now. Visibility varies from one car length to as much as three car lengths. The wind is keeping it whipping round a lot. When the storm is over, traffic will pack it down, and with the sand they spread, it will form a smooth base on the pavement. We already had about 2 inches of base on the pavement before this storm. I imagine this will gives us another inch added onto what we had.

Away from pavement we have about a foot of good base on the ground underneath this new stuff.

Basically just an average snow storm, very seasonal. It is surprising how warm it is staying, we have 10F today.

 

From my view 2500 miles away, this looks more like a weather forecasting success. The event was forecast multiple days in advance, and snow depths and winds at the storm's core are currently well within the forecast range. Compared to typical forecasting decades ago, this is a great improvement.

As typically happens, micro-forecasts at the storm's edges and shoulders were way off. Storm tracks and timing are not yet sufficiently accurate or precise to peg an event's boundaries. But the core macro-forecast was good, so the 'Epic Fail' label absurd.

As for breathless news media hype, I won't defend them, on weather or on much of anything else.

 

Actually the weather bureau has turned into big brother, they cried wolf and all roads were closed aircraft grounded and trains stopped, not to say needlessly, but somebody has to put a stop to the bs, common sense will in the long run keep people out of trouble, giving power to detain the masses to the weather bureau is getting old (considering its a new phenomenon).

 

Far better to have the interstates clogged with stranded semis?

 

Most people are ill prepared for snow and cold, and all it takes are a few idiots that make an annoying situation into a dangerous one. And every idiot that endangers themselves will be calling up the emergency services risking even more people's lives to come and save them. If you know your region can't deal with snow, then preempt it and just shut-er-down. That's why a dusting of snow shuts down the entire Southern part of the US and the rockies region doesn't care when we get a foot of snow. Usually with a good dumping like that, we then drive into the blizzard to get our skis on the slopes in that fresh powder first!

 

ursle,
Try to imagine Boston right now if the weather service had said "a storm, but not a big deal."