We rarely get snow in the greater Seattle area, even though we are further north than Canada's capital city of Ottawa! However, this area has hilly terrain, the highways and streets are impacted by the hills as well as the bodies of water, so when we get snow and ice it can be difficult. Once or twice in a decade we get a really major snowstorm, like two years ago when heavy snow and ice actually lasted for about three weeks! Our cities have few snowplows and limited snow removal equipment.
Anyway, I'm glad the recent snow storm here only lasted about a bit over 3 days, we did receive close to a foot of the white stuff in my neighborhood and almost as much at the Target store, which is a bit lower in elevation.