A major snowstorm passed through the heart of Dixie on Wednesday. Traffic, predictably, came to a slipping, sliding, in-the-ditch halt.
We Northerners usually laugh among ourselves at the Southerners’ inability to drive on snow and ice. But there is more to it than just winter incompetence. When these Southern snowstorms happen, the snow falls onto pavements that are much warmer than here in the North.
The snow melts and then freezes into a sheet of ice, often with a thin layer of water on top due to the near 32-degree temperatures that usually accompany these Southern snows. Plus, Southern snows often fall very heavily in convective showers, which produce heavy snow rates (usually for short periods), that further compounds the problem.
True, Southerners are short on winter driving experience. But we would likely find storms like the one in Dixie this week very difficult to drive in.
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