I got about 24-30". People responded well and stayed off the streets. You couldn't have asked for better timing for the storm, Friday afternoon to Saturday afternoon. Some schools are still closed for tomorrow to give those crews an extra day to clean up before the kids start walking again. My area held onto power, but I think closer to the coast, they had hurricane level gusts, so they lost power. This snow is so light and fluffy, I am tempted to try skiing.

May I ask why people put their windscreen wipers in a vertical position whilst parked and expecting snow?

They don't get frozen onto the windshield in that position. It's tougher to break the ice off the windshield when your windshield wipers are in their normal position.

We must have different snow in the UK. I have never seen it done here. I have never had that problem, whatever clears the windscreen frees the wipers even at -20ºC, dry snow, wet snow, ice and so on.

I will try it next time we get snow and see if there is any advantage to be had.

It doesn't do anything for me, personally. I have a large and robust ice-scraper/snow brush/squeegee implement -- when my car is covered by a hard candy shell, I start it, run the defrosters, scrape and brush as appropriate. It always seems to work for me.

The explanation I have heard is this:

You don´t necesserely know that the wipers are frozen to the windshield. And if you in that case try to use the wipers their electric motor might break.

If you run the wipers when they are frozen you might not burn the motor out, but you can cause the blades to jump off the screw pivot. Our Toyota Highlander had this happen last month--didn't realize the blades were frozen, and when I flipped the toggle one blade came free while the other stayed in place. Fortunately I did not strip the screw that held the nut that secured the blade, and could just retighten it, but it was not enough and my fix failed at a bad time (later while the vehicle was in motion). The dealership fixed it for free when I asked them for the proper setting for my torque wrench so I could do it. Lesson learned.

I can see the value in raising the wipers in a maritime freezing rain event, which can generate an impressive shell of rock-hard ice.

But in my part of the world, it's basically not worth doing. A couple of taps from the scraper end of a long-handled snow brush breaks the wipers free. And if it's just loose, dry snow, they don't freeze down at all.

I go along with with the "it doesn't stick to windshield" group. But, it also helps keep those annoying chunks from sticking to the wipers that cause those miserable bands of water and snow on the windshield.