Generally, a large number of West Coast cities are extremely hilly. Seattle and San Francisco are like Rome, they were both built on 7 hills. It’s not like the East Coast where most cities are on flat land.
Imagine living on this slope and it snows.
Portland has a infamous hill of some kind. Every winter those of us south of Portland watch videos of those cars sliding down it.
We also have hills like those here though. You don’t deliver or drive on those hills when there’s ice, period.
Saw that video the day it aired, everyone around here was talking about it. Hilarious, especially the salt truck.
Looking at @Tman’s chart, I fell into the the East Coast flurries category that day. It took me about 25 minutes longer to get to work that day, but that’s because it was before Dec. 15th so I didn’t have my winter tires on yet. Those made a huge difference a few days later!
Do people still use snow tires? I thought tire construction (steel-belted radial, etc) had moved beyond the necessity for winter tires and that nowadays it was all year round tires for most winter storms and chains for the heavy duty snow fall.
Portland doesn’t have the plows to clear the roads. Well, it has some, but its not nearly enough. I read that Seattle lent us 11 plows, increasing capacity by 20%. (Mathing that out, that means we had ~60 plows before?).
That and the fact that Portland roads can barely support the population on a good day makes it fun during winter storms. As soon as people saw flakes of any sort Tuesday night, our office evacuated.
“I’m not scared about the snow, I’m scared about the traffic once everyone else freaks out about the snow!”
I don’t know what to tell you, but they’re mandatory here in Quebec between Dec. 15th and March 15th. We have very good snow clearing, which means chains would be overkill (plus damage roads). Snow tires are supposedly formulated to properly stick to snow and ice at cold temperatures. Proven through a good set of scientific studies? That I don’t know. Anecdotally they seem to work significantly better than my all-seasons.
That video only exists to get you to purchase more tires.
I’ve never been a great driver in normal conditions, but I don’t mind driving in the snow. I think part of that is just knowing what types of streets to avoid, when to put on the chains, and when to just stay home.
But not to worry, I don’t think any worse of you or Woolen for using snow tires. :)
And they’re driving on snack pack. Portland and Southern Oregon both wind up driving on ice, solid visible ice if you are lucky, black ice if not, which is always fun and chains and snow only do so much… a lot of us stud our tires for that.
I agreed with you & went searching for a better experiment. I found this article over on popular mechanics with much more rigorous control over the variables.
And what did they find?
The results were especially striking during braking and cornering, when snow tires improved performance by up to 5 percent and 20 percent, respectively.
So better, but not as much as that video would have you believe.
Wait, there are tires other than Summer tires!?
/s
I missed the capitalization there at first and for a second wondered what makes walking a crime in Portland. It might be time to grab a cup of coffee.
HOW DO I HEART THIS POST??
So, here are some pictures of my metal roof:
I think I’m going to lose my gutters based on last time this happened…we’ll see
lol @CraigM I have yet to see it come off, but just hearing it is like being in an earthquake. The entire house shakes and you hear this incredible tearing sound and then either this huge WHUMP as it all hits the ground, or a huge SHUDDER if it’s the backside of the house & the snow from the upper roof hits the roof over the deck (and then a softer Whump as that snow then comes off onto the ground.
I should take a before picture of the walkway in front of the house so when it does let loose, you can see how big of a pile of snow it makes when it does hit the ground. BRB. ;-)
Play some opera full blast – one of those ear piercing solos – and maybe it will all come crashing down!