Driving in a blizzard last night

dieselfan1 · December 30, 2025

We drove out to Utah from Minnesota for Christmas on the 21st. 1300 miles avg 70 mph 12 mpg.

Great weather little windy. But on the way back yesterday we hit a blizzard in N.E. Iowa and S.W. Minnesota. We left Utah at 6am so it was around 10 pm whe we hit it. Whiteout conditions for about 200 miles. Zero visibility at times. Cars and semis in the ditch every couple miles.

The big 3500HD didn't flinch. I have the utmost confidence driving this truck in such conditions.

At one point I was going about 20 mph and drove right into the ditch. Couldn't see anything. After I realized we were in the ditch I floored it and drove right back up onto the highway .

I am a firm believer in my tires. Nitto Terra Grappler G3s 35x11.50R20. They performed absolutely awesome.

Looking back we should have got room in Sioux City but I wanted to get home.

What's your experience driving in winter with these trucks?

Edited December 30, 2025 by dieselfan1

Chuck FB · December 30, 2025

I will admit that for the time I have had my truck, by the time I had it in my hands later last winter the road conditions were very abnormal for here as in bare roads so that was no challenge, then this winter it also was an odd one earlier on with roads drying off in between freezing rain or small snow events but have been on some ice etc and actually Christmas eve was the only time I have been on more the snow packed and snow falling condition with a bit of drifting taking place. This winter I am running a set of Nokian LT3 winter studded tires which I have no prior experience with I will say that I am not surprisingly somewhat disappointed in them because as I suspected their rubber compound for the 10 ply light truck tires is a lot firmer rubber than typical P rated winter tires and they don't have the amount of siping in them that the better P rated tires have. I knew all that going into it though buying an HD truck, just can't get the better gripping tires in a heavy tire that is made to be tougher. I am running the stock 275/65R20 size and have 40 psi in the front and 35 psi in the rear as I can only imagine how useless they would be jacked up to the max pressure of a 3500 that is almost empty of carrying any weight. While my time behind the wheel in crap conditions isn't that much, I certainly get the feeling that its more planted on winter roads than an empty 1/2 ton pickup simply because its heavier and the fairly long wheel base relative to some more compact vehicles always makes a huge difference in keeping things from going sideways literally. My truck I used prior was a 1/2 ton but an extended cab and I always had a fair bit of weight on the back and it was pretty good as well for stability and I ran winter tires for the last number of years on it as well. All terrains I used were only so so in performance, they could not compare at all to the ice performance of a good winter tire.

Had the ditch had deep hard snow in it that night you slipped into it from a hardened plowed up snow bank or snow filled ditch, the odds are you would have been another statistic that night !, however as it was there is a good chance because you were driving it vs some light lower to the ground typical "sort of" all wheel drive you most likely would have been claimed by the ditch.

That night before Christmas ( I mean how else can I word this LOL ) as I came to this idiotic new traffic circle that is right in the middle of a four lane divided highway out in the middle of nowhere and some governments brainwave to spend untold amounts building that this summer and still haven't completed it off, I saw a couple of pickups sitting within the traffic circle on the entry into it from the secondary highway I was on and it was like 11pm although there are street lights set up at that intersection. So what I assume happened is that a super duty Ford was going too fast for the conditions ( and his shitty tires ) around the traffic circle and skidded over and caught the snow ridge the plow truck pushed up and he ramped up onto that hard snow ridge/bank and his front wheels were off the ground as the truck was hung up like a turtle. Behind him and that truck was facing the rear of the ford was an older Chev and I think a heavy duty pickup as well and they had just hooked up what looked to be a 3/8 chain or so hooked around the ball of a ball hitch the Ford had and into the chevs one remaining front tow hook loops as his other tow hook was snapped off. Put another way, about everything wrong that one could possibly be doing as his next move was to hit the chain with a bit of a run and BANG it would go and it just barely inched the Ford. He did that maybe four times and finally got the Ford moving enough that it was able to slide off of the hard snow and the guy in the chev had his foot to the floor and it was bouncing off the rev limiter as he's scratching on the snow/ice like that's going to help. The reason I stopped was to see if they needed a tow rope for example and the guy standing off to the side directing the proceedings said I think this should work and I think also assuming they wouldn't be able to hook onto the closed loop tow hook with a tow rope anyway. Of course the guy with the Ford having a tow ball insert into his receiver, like that trick hasn't killed numerous people when it snaps off. Oh and I forgot to say that the guy in the Ford had tires that looked to be twice as wide as factory tires ( they were wide ) and really low profile and the wheels stuck right out and they were mud tires that were well worn down. Like hmmm, what could have caused him to have slid off the highway LOL. It seemed like they must have been traveling together and were not strangers, my guess is they were rammy oil patch workers. The guy standing there made a comment about how they had to really work at it to retrieve their chain from the back of their open box pickup as it was stuck solid to the box in snow/ice.

rjgvt · December 30, 2025

I run the same tires as Chuck FB, Hakkapeliitta LT3 studded tires for winter. Stock LT275/65R20E. This is my second winter with these tires. I had a set on my last GMC 1500 but were not studded, they were great during winter.

We've had all kinds of weather this past week from snow, freezing rain, ice, etc. My son, his wife and my grand-daughter were in VT for the last 10 days. I picked them up at the airport for their late flight to get them to my ex's house and back to the airport this morning. She lives a little over 24 miles from my house and GF and I went there everyday. Some nights coming home we had fully snow covered interstate, one night had the right lane cleared and yesterday was freezing rain. We stayed home yesterday. I was up at 2am this morning to be there before 3am and had them at the airport at 4am.

The road to my ex's and her driveway was pure ice with a dusting of snow we got last night. I took my time and made it on her road and driveway with 4wd on.

I put 60psi on these tires when I put the tires/wheels on this past October. I figured when the temp drops I'd still have 55psi and that has worked out for me. Temps were in the teens this morning with high winds. I don't run an empty truck. Curb weight is 7637 lbs. I weighed my truck at a CAT Scale after I got the ARE cap on and all of the stuff that I keep under the rear seat and in the bed and it weighed 8680 lbs. That was me and GF in the truck plus a mostly full gas tank. I don't need to add weight to my truck for winter.

If I had to do it all over again, I'd buy the same tires for winter. I also hunt in areas that have unmaintained class 4 roads and having good tires is a must.

lineman1234 · December 30, 2025

Just normal winter driving in the very top, very west part of Minnesota.

dieselfan1 · December 30, 2025

18 minutes ago, lineman1234 said:

Just normal winter driving in the very top, very west part of Minnesota.

That's nothing

Chuck FB · December 30, 2025

3 hours ago, rjgvt said:

I run the same tires as Chuck FB, Hakkapeliitta LT3 studded tires for winter. Stock LT275/65R20E. This is my second winter with these tires. I had a set on my last GMC 1500 but were not studded, they were great during winter.

We've had all kinds of weather this past week from snow, freezing rain, ice, etc. My son, his wife and my grand-daughter were in VT for the last 10 days. I picked them up at the airport for their late flight to get them to my ex's house and back to the airport this morning. She lives a little over 24 miles from my house and GF and I went there everyday. Some nights coming home we had fully snow covered interstate, one night had the right lane cleared and yesterday was freezing rain. We stayed home yesterday. I was up at 2am this morning to be there before 3am and had them at the airport at 4am.

The road to my ex's and her driveway was pure ice with a dusting of snow we got last night. I took my time and made it on her road and driveway with 4wd on.

I put 60psi on these tires when I put the tires/wheels on this past October. I figured when the temp drops I'd still have 55psi and that has worked out for me. Temps were in the teens this morning with high winds. I don't run an empty truck. Curb weight is 7637 lbs. I weighed my truck at a CAT Scale after I got the ARE cap on and all of the stuff that I keep under the rear seat and in the bed and it weighed 8680 lbs. That was me and GF in the truck plus a mostly full gas tank. I don't need to add weight to my truck for winter.

If I had to do it all over again, I'd buy the same tires for winter. I also hunt in areas that have unmaintained class 4 roads and having good tires is a must.

I assume your truck has the 4 auto optional transfer case ( actually not an option but is standard for the higher trim trucks ) and wondered if you ever use it. That same question would also go for dieselfan1 . The reason I ask is because of my chat with one of the local transmission rebuild shops and his experience seeing this type of auto transfer case ( not saying the HD version specifically ) is prone to failure of the clutches due to the biasing slipping nature of them depending on the road surface one is driving on.

Winter tires are an oddity due to how not just wear but age can reduce their ice performance.in speaking of non studded tires. Sure, any tire ages and has less ice traction then it had when new but winter tires I've found with what I have run in the past can have a drastic reduction in performance over what they "can" do when new in age and brand new. Winter tires are sure not equal in their performance either from brand to brand and years ago when the so called new age studless tires came out and the claims that some performed better than a lower end winter tire with studs, that sounded like a bs story but I found out from testing a tire shops trucks with various tires that it was not all bs at all. Its years ago now and a tire model that Bridgestone quit making as the DM-V2 came out to replace it but that tire for the first couple of winters was something else and defied logic on slick surfaces and am speaking of leaving the truck in two wheel drive and having performance of a four wheel drive with so so winter tires on acceleration from a stop but then age took over and the performance degraded and while still ok, was not nearly as top notch. Then I got a set of studless toyo observe tires of whatever series that was at the time some years ago and they were hardly any better than the well worn and aged blizzaks I had, that was a disappointment. The problem is popular tire sizes become yesterdays tire sizes and they drop the tire size for the winter specialty tire market.

Chuck FB · December 30, 2025

47 minutes ago, lineman1234 said:

Just normal winter driving in the very top, very west part of Minnesota.

What's interesting is that photos like that may or may not indicate how grippy or slick the road actually is and why it can surprise a person in a bad way. Like that blowing snow on what looks like a clear road surface might be ok or it might have a very thin layer of very polished ice from that blowing snow and the photo above it with the visual layer of very thin packed down snow the plow could not scrape off may have better traction. Temperature etc and so on can sure change what the reality is from the perceived assumptions. As to how those surfaces look compared to what I typically have here on our secondary two lane highway, our road tends to get packed down snow and typically its cold and if its just salt/sand spread that won't touch it to melt it and so it builds up into a rough ridged mess that a truck plow just slides over, only a grader putting the pressure on could scrape that off and cause damage to the highway. When they want to wing snow back more they use a grader but have the main blade held up off the roads surface. They do a lot better clearing job on the more main highways but its surprising how icy and nasty they have left them in the last years, the contract company the government hires cuts corners and could be tax dollars as well just are not there. When/if we get s warm spell and if they actually get out there with the plows then it can cut some of that rough crap off.

I just got a bout of ice pellets and freezing rain this morning yet the temperature is around 0f and still was able to produce freezing rain. I don't expect the roads will be in great shape now !.

dieselfan1 · December 30, 2025

They outlawed studded tires here in Minnesota in 1971.

Damages the roads too much.

If we could, I would be running them.

Grumpy Bear · December 30, 2025

Funny story. I left Denver heading home to Illinois in the late 70's in a 76 Ford Granada 351W. I-80 across Nebraska was hideous. I'd find out later that minutes after getting on the Interstate it would be closed behind me for most of it length across this state. I can hardly see the ordainment on the hood. But I could see, faintly, the taillights of the Semi ahead of me. We were crawling along at something under 45 mph but moving, plowing through drifts and bouncing over iced tire tracks. I thought, "I'll get off at the next available exit and get a room". Until then not loosing these taillights seemed the best idea.

About a hour passes, I'm whipped and white knuckled and this guy is going slower and slower and slower. Finally he comes to a dead stop and turns on the flashers. RATTTTTS. I don't see him get out but I see the flare when he lights it so I get out and walk toward it. He's curious as to my need to follow so close so I explain. He starts laughing his butt off.

"Look North" he smiles. I hang my head and laugh in disbelief. We are about a 100 yards away from the Interstate in the middle of a hayfield. Looking back it felt smoother than the road. :crackup: I love Bridgestone Blizzak tires.

Chuck FB · December 30, 2025

2 minutes ago, dieselfan1 said:

They outlawed studded tires here in Minnesota in 1971.

Damages the roads too much.

If we could, I would be running them.

I wasn't sure when they outlawed them, I am surprised its that long ago as there was no such thing as a really good studless winter tire until many years later. The insanity is that its a northern state and gets lots of crap road conditions just like all the other states that are near or on the northern border and I believe most of those other states do allow studs ?. Here in Alberta the rule is that we can run studs 24/365 as in no restrictions.

Speaking of ****** road conditions that don't show up at all as being nasty, I just came across a video someone took this morning on the freeway heading up to this part of Alberta although still a long ways from where I am. That freezing rain is causing lots of issues and expect to hear a lot more about accidents etc and spun out trucks on the major grades ( river valley hills ). Don't bother listening to the video as its the ice ice baby music ... social media LOL. I assume the super B driver hit the brakes and the tires of the rear trailer locked up and it takes time to bleed off the air to release the brakes and get those tires rotating again once they stop turning on slick ice. The highway doesn't look bad at all, that just shows how an over cast sky and a thin layer of freezing rain can trick a person.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/826461287032579

customboss · December 30, 2025

22 minutes ago, dieselfan1 said:

They outlawed studded tires here in Minnesota in 1971.

Damages the roads too much.

If we could, I would be running them.

Interesting. No salt on roads here in CO but studs allowed.

customboss · December 30, 2025

10 minutes ago, Grumpy Bear said:

Funny story. I left Denver heading home to Illinois in the late 70's in a 76 Ford Granada 351W. I-80 across Nebraska was hideous. I'd find out later that minutes after getting on the Interstate it would be closed behind me for most of it length across this state. I can hardly see the ordainment on the hood. But I could see, faintly, the taillights of the Semi ahead of me. We were crawling along at something under 45 mph but moving, plowing through drifts and bouncing over iced tire tracks. I thought, "I'll get off at the next available exit and get a room". Until then not loosing these taillights seemed the best idea.

About a hour passes, I'm whipped and white knuckled and this guy is going slower and slower and slower. Finally he comes to a dead stop and turns on the flashers. RATTTTTS. I don't see him get out but I see the flare when he lights it so I get out and walk toward it. He's curious as to my need to follow so close so I explain. He starts laughing his butt off.

"Look North" he smiles. I hang my head and laugh in disbelief. We are about a 100 yards away from the Interstate in the middle of a hayfield. Looking back it felt smoother than the road. I love Bridgestone Blizzak tires.

Wow!!!!

Chuck FB · December 30, 2025

9 minutes ago, Grumpy Bear said:

Funny story. I left Denver heading home to Illinois in the late 70's in a 76 Ford Granada 351W. I-80 across Nebraska was hideous. I'd find out later that minutes after getting on the Interstate it would be closed behind me for most of it length across this state. I can hardly see the ordainment on the hood. But I could see, faintly, the taillights of the Semi ahead of me. We were crawling along at something under 45 mph but moving, plowing through drifts and bouncing over iced tire tracks. I thought, "I'll get off at the next available exit and get a room". Until then not loosing these taillights seemed the best idea.

About a hour passes, I'm whipped and white knuckled and this guy is going slower and slower and slower. Finally he comes to a dead stop and turns on the flashers. RATTTTTS. I don't see him get out but I see the flare when he lights it so I get out and walk toward it. He's curious as to my need to follow so close so I explain. He starts laughing his butt off.

"Look North" he smiles. I hang my head and laugh in disbelief. We are about a 100 yards away from the Interstate in the middle of a hayfield. Looking back it felt smoother than the road. I love Bridgestone Blizzak tires.

Uh the pre GPS world, now people who can see clearly drive off the road or over a cliff as they take instruction from the voice on the GPS. However definitely I have seen situations where it would have been bad visibility and the follow the leader didn't work out so well as the follower followed the vehicle in front of them right into the ditch. Its certainly a horrible experience being on a road that has bad visibility, be that fog or blowing snow as the odds of bad things happening are absolutely not in ones favor.

rjgvt · December 30, 2025

1 hour ago, Chuck FB said:

I assume your truck has the 4 auto optional transfer case ( actually not an option but is standard for the higher trim trucks ) and wondered if you ever use it. That same question would also go for dieselfan1 . The reason I ask is because of my chat with one of the local transmission rebuild shops and his experience seeing this type of auto transfer case ( not saying the HD version specifically ) is prone to failure of the clutches due to the biasing slipping nature of them depending on the road surface one is driving on.

Winter tires are an oddity due to how not just wear but age can reduce their ice performance.in speaking of non studded tires. Sure, any tire ages and has less ice traction then it had when new but winter tires I've found with what I have run in the past can have a drastic reduction in performance over what they "can" do when new in age and brand new. Winter tires are sure not equal in their performance either from brand to brand and years ago when the so called new age studless tires came out and the claims that some performed better than a lower end winter tire with studs, that sounded like a bs story but I found out from testing a tire shops trucks with various tires that it was not all bs at all. Its years ago now and a tire model that Bridgestone quit making as the DM-V2 came out to replace it but that tire for the first couple of winters was something else and defied logic on slick surfaces and am speaking of leaving the truck in two wheel drive and having performance of a four wheel drive with so so winter tires on acceleration from a stop but then age took over and the performance degraded and while still ok, was not nearly as top notch. Then I got a set of studless toyo observe tires of whatever series that was at the time some years ago and they were hardly any better than the well worn and aged blizzaks I had, that was a disappointment. The problem is popular tire sizes become yesterdays tire sizes and they drop the tire size for the winter specialty tire market.

My current truck has Auto 4wd, along with 2hi, 4hi and 4lo. I use Auto 4wd frequently. After yesterdays freezing rain turned to ice then rain then snow, I used 2hi, 4hi and Auto today over the course of 80 miles picking up my son and family, get them to the airport and then back home. Drove on ice, ice on packed snow, snow and clear roads. The conditions improved from crappy roads to clear roads as I drove south to the airport then back to snowy roads as I got close to home. I was back home before the plow trucks were salting the roads in my town. I live at the bottom of a dead end road. I go up 2 hills to get to the main road. I’m retired, but when I worked, I never missed a day of work due to weather.

This is my fourth GMC truck with Auto 4wd, the previous three were 1500’s. I use it when the conditions are variable with snow and semi-clear roads. Some towns here do a better job of plowing/salting than others.

In reference to another post, we can run studded tires all year. I hear vehicles running studs during the summer. My guess is that the tires are worn to make it another winter.

Several years ago I went to a wildlife management area after hunting season to track deer for fun, hunt coyotes, etc. I only had AT tires on at the time. There was a lot of snow and I got stuck. The plowed snow kept me from getting the driver door open. I managed to move my truck enough to get out and try to shovel. Some locals helped get me out and I had to back down the road to a spot to turn around. They all had studded snow tires. I had snow tires before the next winter.

chwilliams · December 30, 2025

1 hour ago, customboss said:

Interesting. No salt on roads here in CO but studs allowed.

In Oregon they allow both, abet the salt in only certain problematic places and LEOs give tickets out like candy for having studs on past March 31. Put me in charge and both get banned, studs with malice for the sound they make.

For chasing storms in the Cascades, non-studded Nokian Hakka LT3's (stock size) have done me well for the past two winters. Only complaint is they wear fast, have probably two more winters (this one included) left in them.