Im not sure which winter is worse. In Michigan, it is cold. Most winter come in and park overhead. the begining and ending date varies slightly but generally winter moves in and hangs around a while. Deep snow and frozen ponds. Good for snowmobiles and pond hockey. And the cold is not bad, our balls form a kind of leather and womens breasts grow fur, we adapt as northern types to 6 months of tundra.
In the northwest every day is roll of the dice. Most of the days are crap but spring tend to show up twice a month. It rains most of the time and can change to ice any night anywhere. Salt is not used as religiously and black ice with curves trees and mountains do not mix. Also the lack of salt or seemingly any real good effort to combat frozen precipitation results in a lot of ice build up when the freezing level drops below altitude. Using a volcanic cinder in place of or mixed with salt is some tough guys joke in the roads department. At times the Ice and cinder pileup like a seven layer cake, good thing studs are legal! and mandatory! Thankfully a melt is not far away, unfortunately, the ice layer cake made during the storm take time to melt like pykrete, and giant ice pot holes form as the modified ice slowly melts. In summary, The PNW has persistent storm cycles with varying and dangerous conditions, without stability it is not one way or the other, its just 3-4 months of dark wet sheet.
