Tire Question -- All Seasons Vs. Snow Tires?

[RobertInOntario]

No problem, Don! I think both extremes are hard to take! Rob

You hit the mark on that one, I always think it's fascinating to find out about how people live in other areas. We have a saying here that, "you don't have to shovel sunshine". As you can see though, we do have our problems. In the summer, it's dealing with the extreme heat, in the winter, well, it's like Carl says, you can go from the hot desert of Phoenix to the snow country of Flagstaff or Payson in around two hours. Every winter we do have warnings about checkpoints on I-17 where, if you don't have snow tires or chains, they'll make you turn back. That's why you can buy snow tires in the desert. Oh yeah, we do occasionally get a light dusting of snow in the area, mostly in the high desert just to the north of us and once every ten years or so down in Phoenix itself. It melts off quickly, but it's a pretty sight for a short while.

Normally, here in southern Ontario, we get very hot, humid summers -- often high 80s or even low 90s with humidity on top of that. This past summer, though, was cool and wet which really upset a lot of folks!

WInters can be cold and snowy. In recent years, the winters have been tougher which is why I'm looking into this snow tire issue ahead of time! On the other hand, Environment Canada is predicting a mild winter this year but they've been wrong so many times before!

My relatives in England are often surprised by the extremes that we get here, especially when Toronto is about 10 degrees (in latitude) further south than London (UK) is.

Sounds like you also get quite a bit of regional variation in climate & weather.

Cheers,
Rob