> That article was a strange read from my perspective, because here the infrastructure is built for winters as well. I don't remember school ever being canceled due to winter conditions, traffic is only a mess after a snowstorm.

Seems like the author lives in a rural area where there isn't the support to deal with heavy snow. Also, Finland has frequent snow that falls in small amounts. I'm not sure exactly where the author is, but some mountainous or lake-adjacent areas in the US and Canada the snow falls less frequently but when it does it can come very heavy, like a meter of the stuff in 48 hours is not uncommon which is more than Helsinki usually gets in an entire winter. In Buffalo, NY for example a few years back they got 2 meters in a single day.

Yes but then in spring come the freeze-thaw cycles that make every town a skating rink. Sand & grit barely rate as halfway measures. More-aggressive snow removal and pavement scraping would help.

I've been obsessed longtime about how (or, better: whether) robots could remove the ice from pavements, but I only see tech challenge after tech challenge.