Well, in my neck of the woods they issue such warnings via TV, radio broadcast, news papers and sometimes email in the office. People are very disciplined and act accordingly. They start the drive to the office at a time that would require hurry, make sure they still have the summer tires on and refrain from brushing the snow from the car. That leads to an annual peak of traffic accidents and people showing up hours late for work. Besides snow in winter is not really a surprise - neither here nor in Buffalo as it seems.
Humans are just wired that way.
BTW: We get an annual TV coverage from the chaos at the start of winter in the USA as well. Some things just seem to be same in every country.