When I first read the title of the topic thread, I wasn't sure if the conversation was going to be about conditions on the roads being worse this year because of simingly colder conditions this year throughout the US (and presumably Canada) or about the fact that communities are cutting their snow removal budgets.
I believe there is a bit of both factors involved.
Yes, this winter IS proving -- so far -- to have a greater grip on us than the last few years.
I remember 3 years ago here in Indiana we didn't get any accumulation until about January 15, and 2 years ago it was 60 and raining on January 10.
Last year we had two major -- for us this is 4-6+ inches on snow -- snowstorms right around now and at the end of January.
This year we just had a fairly big one last week, but not a whole lot of snow before then -- probably an inch or two a couple of times. The peculiar thing is the snow usually melts, but this year we have not seen temps climb out of the 20 (daytime high) since before Christmas, so there is quite a bit of lingering snow.
I am expecting at least one substantial snowfall at the very end of the month or in the first half of February. Big snow is more rare later in February -- more like an inch or two here and there.
Supposedly we are going to warm up later in the week and even hit 50 some time next week.
As far as the snow removal, I am in the richest county in Indiana and I HAVE observed much less very expensive trucks -- there were a lot of small to medium vehicles around though. Not sure if the budget cuts are playing into this. It also seemed like they were waiting for the snow to end to start work rather than continuously work throughout the duration like they used to in the past.