Prius Winter Performance During West Coast Winter Storm

I drove my 08 Prius in the snow for the first time yesterday for my commute here in Colorado. It seemed to perform as any front wheel drive car would be expected to perform. I took it out in a big parking lot to get the feel for the traction control kicking in and again, it did as well as any other front wheel drive car. This commute was on hard packed snow and some ice. I can see it is not built for plowing through 12 inches of new snow but I have other vehicles for those days. The car has OEM tires. Bob Colorado Springs, CO

 

well, Sunday night here, it snowed so hard i could barely see where i was going on the way home. but it went to rain in a few hours and stayed that way until monday morning, then around 11 AM, it cleared up and stopped raining and temperature dropped like a rock. so it was clear blue skies, but EXTREMELY slick out, and you could not tell because the roads appeared to be dry. but that only lasted until that evening, it warmed up again and its back to rain...

oh well, never thought i would say it, but i sure did miss the rain!!

 

Man, I feel for you guys on the west coast. No longer the wet coast, but rather the buried coast. They did a cross Canada report on Global last night, showing people throwing snow on the top of the 12' piles beside their driveways! At least you'll loose it quickly when it finally warms. Better invest in a boat though.
Here our first snowfall is usually late in October, and early in April that snow is still there, buried of course, under the rest of the winters snow. But usually it's only a metre deep or so. It compacts with the under layers turning into granular ice.
Much easier to deal with cold than metres of snow!
I guess those in the Canadian East have no sympathy. They get the same buried feeling!

 

well, we have had a week of mostly warm weather (its about 48ºF right now) so ignoring the mountains of snow in parking lots, there is only scattered areas of snow in untrodden fields. should be gone by end of the week.

but now, we have saturated ground and rainfall to worry about so we are having flooding issues. we got spared for the most part because the thaw just did not happen as fast as predicted so we only got higher than normal river levels so far... but a ton of snow in the lower mountains yet may cause a problem... fingers are crossed

 

Well, I have to take my Aunt to the airport tomorrow. She gets to return to PoCo as the Weather Network is discussing the possibility of +100 mm rain. That should make things interesting!

 

Dropped off my Aunt at the airport this morning. I'm sure she will have fun back in PoCo

I have to leave tomorrow. Let's hope when I get back in a week, I won't have rain or floods here