Hi Nick,
I was lucky enough to live in the US for 4 years, i remember snow was forcast and like a typical Englishman i ignored all the folks buying up snow shovels and blowers, then the snow fell and fell until it was nearly to the roof of the car, haha guess who wished they had the sense to get a snow blower, or at least something larger than a garden spade :-)
Kind regards
Ade