Living in Austin for a time and traveling through the rest of Texas during the winter was eyeopening for my former Colorado views of snow.

Austin never had any serious snow accumulation when I was there, however it did have a few ice storms. Snow along the front range in Colorado tends to be dry stuff that compresses into a decent driving surface when dirt was spread on it. Slick icy spots still formed, but usually not enough to cause problems, even when in a rear wheel drive muscle car.

Austin's pure ice on the other hand was a problem for pretty much every consumer vehicle. RWD, FWD, AWD, didn't really matter when all 4 tires simply spin without moving the vehicle forward. Those incidents are so rare that the city didn't find it financially viable to keep equipment around to handle it.

I was amused when I talked to some people who didn't believe it snowed in Texas. Some of my road trips back home took me through the more northern latitudes of the state where cities did have similar snow clearing capabilities as any city in the front range. Larger low pressure storm fronts sitting around Albuquerque often hit the panhandle just as hard as they would the front range.

Which speaking of those Albuquerque lows, those were the magic words during my childhood to know that school might be delayed or cancelled. Many of the school grounds during those times turned into massive sledding areas for the kids that lived within walking distance. The largest storm I remember happened where the house I was in had a perfect setup for trapping a lot of snow in the back yard. Basically there was a retaining wall about a story high in the middle of the back yard before getting to the detached garage and alleyway. It mostly filled in with no easy way for the wind to blow it back out. Ended up digging tunnels in it and having a blast with my childhood dog.