I moved several hours north and went from a “weird people have winter tires” area to a “reckless people don’t have winter tires” area. But there are several differences: where I was, everything was relatively flat. Where I am, nothing is flat. On the other hand, on a snowy morning where I was I would regularly pass 4-5 cars off the road on my way to work. Here, I’ve maybe seen 1 car off the road in 5 years.
But that’s why my original suggestion of winter tires was
Where I live we change out our tires twice a year. The whole ‘all season’ thing proved not so effective in really snowy conditions. Only ‘city only’ drivers trust them, that I known.
My dad and I actually pushed a mail truck out of my essentially-flat driveway on Monday. Apparently they don’t have winter tires.
Yes, that thread …
Inspired this one (I didn’t wanna hijack a city-specific conversation)
Included a gem of a tip: cheap tablecloths as a windshield cover. It was that specific tip that made me go, “Hmm, I need more ideas (kids call 'em “life hacks”) like that!”
Thanks to all y’all, I have purchased all-weather windshield fluid (didn’t know that was a thing, so thank you for enlightening me!) and a jug of ice melt pellets for the steps up to my door.
They are supposedly pet- and plant-safe(r) magnesium chloride hexahydrate pellets.
Oh! I haz a (likely dumb) question: I gotta drain the garden hose & bring it inside, right?
Don’t forget to enjoy the snow. If you get a good snowstorm at night, going outside while the snow is falling all around you is magical. It gets so quiet and all the sounds are muffled. Look straight up and watch the snow fall.
Look for animal prints in the snow the next morning.
You do.
And probably before that (first hard freeze), you’ll want to disconnect it from the (presumably frost-free) hose bib even before you drain it and take it in.
A frost-free hose bib … isn’t … if you leave the hose connected to it – particularly if there’s a spray nozzle at the other end (that prevents water from getting out and/or air from getting in).
Another thing, be prepared in late March or April to have some absolutely gorgeous spring weather and then winter will come roaring back with a vengeance.
Heh… most winters in Portland, OR, we get a couple of days here and there with maybe an inch of snow. Some years we don’t get any at all. Once every four or five years, we get a good storm that drops six or eight inches, that actually sticks around for more than a day.
And yet, many, many people around here put studded snow tires on every winter. The only thing they are accomplishing is tearing up the roads. I don’t understand why it’s allowed.
I found on my fwd vehicles, snow tires were absolutely necessary. Even in the city on days where plows were not able to keep up with the snow fall I was able to get through the worst intersections where drifting and blowing snow swamps the area. Slowly slipping and sliding but not stuck. OTOH since I’ve been driving AWD vehicles, all season tires have been just fine.
When you hit the brakes, it matters not one whit how many tires are driving when you hit the gas. AWD will not help you stop at ALL.
I’ve lived in Minnesota for 70 years and have some experience with winters. I think you worry too much. As far as the cold once it gets cold enough that you are driven in doors and can no longer play tennis outside or sit on your back steps and drink a beer it doesn’t really matter how cold it gets. Twenty above is about the same as twenty below. You are driven in doors in either case. Some people like to ski, skate, etc, but I’ve never found much pleasure in outdoor winter activities.
Driving will depend a lot on circumstance. Driving in the country where you are subject to drifts and wind means you have to avoid travel altogether some times. In the city, the roads are plowed and drivable, but you have to put up with all those other drivers who are driving too fast and following too close. The key is to drive slower than you think you should and don’t follow too closely.
None of this is really a big deal.
Probably, but I leave the backyard hose out all winter on its hose stand, after removing it from the tap and removing the spray attachment and more or less draining it.
But the really important related thing here is remember to turn off the water to all outside taps before the freezing weather, and then leave the taps open.
Context really is everything 
This. If there’s water in the outside tap and it freezes, it can damage the tap to the point it starts leaking and can’t be turned off.
I didn’t say it’s never a good idea anywhere. I said I don’t know anyone that changes tires for the seasons. I’ve had cars in Chicago & Milwaukee which are flat but get cold and snowy and I think OP’s situation is similar. This simply isn’t common, at least in sub & urban Midwest US.
I’ve never seen this either. What do you do with the blanket once it’s frozen stiff? Heh, planket.
Is this a Quebec thing? I’ve never seen anything like that in the parts of Canada I’ve lived in.
I had never seen these things until I went to Québec City for university. I had fallen in love with Québec in the summer time. When I saw those little huts going up in late fall, they were my first hint that Québec in the winter time was going to be a bit different…
Having recently moved from 60 years in coastal California to western Massachusetts (a good bit colder than Boston), I had to learn all the things. Plus, we live on top of a hill on a gravel road in a very rural area. We have livestock, hence there are barn chores at dawn and dusk in winter just like summer, except you don’t have to use a sledgehammer to break the ice in the horses’ water trough in summer.
Here are some things nobody told me.
One, there sure as hell is a difference between 25, 15, and 0 degrees F. If you are looking out a window there might not be, but working in those temperatures is a whole nother story. For 25, flannel-lined jeans, a turtleneck shirt with a heavy wool sweater over it and an insulated barn jacket, medium-insulated gloves, wool socks and heavy rubber boots, wool beanie, is sufficient. Once you get down to zero, you are doing heavyweight thermals under wool under snow parka and snow pants, ski gloves with liners and chemical handwarmers and the equivalent on your feet. Even then, I can only work about 40 minutes out there before my hands and feet are hurting and I have to go warm them up before another stint.
Two, despite all the scary stories, on maintained roads all you really need is some patience and common sense. All the paved roads are salted around here. All the unpaved roads are constantly plowed. I have studded snow tires on my teeny little Honda Fit and rarely have an issue even getting up my hill. Yes indeed we use studded snow tires out here; although they are not useful on the paved roads by and large, they are essential on the many gravel roads which get a coating of packed snow almost as slippery as ice. That brings me to ice.
Snow is just a bit tedious – an obstacle to shovel, wade through, etc. Ice, however, will break your bones. Once the weather has thawed and then frozen again, I need ice cleats to get safely to the barn and back. The ones I like are Katoola NanoSpikes. They stay on my boots all winter – don’t wear them in the house, they will ruin any hardwood floor even through carpet. Ask me how I know. The boots stay in the mudroom – a very handy room in the winter. Things need a place to drip.
Third thing. Real winter is GORGEOUS. It is exalting. Of course everything in cities is ugly at every season (oh yeah, I hate cities), but the countryside could not be more beautiful. Snowshoeing, snowmobiling, cross-country skiing! Sledding!
Bonus: with real winter, you get real spring. Without the last drawn-out miseries of late winter, spring cannot be as sweet.
The irony is that Quebeckers are generally pretty big on aesthetics – witness, for instance, some of the beautiful architecture found in Montreal. Yet even there, there are oddities. Many old duplexes in Montreal have outside staircases leading to the apartment on the second floor. This is not only ugly, but rather strangely unsafe if you consider all the snow and ice that accumulates on them in a Montreal winter. To be fair, I think they stopped building them sometime in the 30s, and are only found in really old neighbourhoods.