Road America: The 50 states of snow driving

It snowed today. Also yesterday, dawn to midnight. White flakes have cannoned out of the sky for nearly two days straight, every shape and size imaginable.

In one sense, snow is the same everywhere: white, cold, an airborne crystal. Ground accumulation makes the world seem briefly calmer. Later, the snow will mix with dirt and road muck, and we will complain about how that once-pretty white fluff has grown gross, until of course the weather warms and the gross melts and everyone goes back to complaining about how the outdoors is always just too dang hot.

Surely, you think, snow driving in America must be like snow driving everywhere else?

Maybe. As my father once said, ‘it depends on the degree of local panic.’

The thing is, a country this big has a hell of a lot of local.