It's snowing pretty hard. At 2:30 the roads were already covered, but for some places where there were tire wipes down to pavement. Those weren't long enough to justify switching the Jeep out of 4WD.
I encountered the usual morons:
1) Extra-slow guy: this is the dude who nearly comes to a stop for all turns and goes 20 miles per hour. Half the lights on his car don't work and his windshield wipers are going full speed at all times. I was stuck behind this guy from the moment I got on 394 until I was finally able to pass him on Ridge Road.
2) Chevy Tahoe Douchebag: this is the person (usually a 20-something woman) who thinks that driving an SUV makes you totally immune to all of the laws of classical mechanics. Because she thinks this, she tailgates you in the worst snowstorm in a decade because she is in a hurry and you're driving a Jeep, for crying out loud! (Why is she in a hurry? Because she's in her 20s. That's all it requires.) Never mind traffic or road conditions or weather or anything; she's going to tailgate you because you are going too slow!
3) Big 4x4 dude: you know who I'm talking about; the guy who buys a brand-new 4WD pickup, then adds all kinds of "off road" accessories. Typically a 6-8" lift kit, slightly larger tires than stock, nerf bars, brush guards, off-road lights, etc. This truck is never actually taken off-road because he'd scratch the paint, so snowstorms are the only times he gets to play with his truck. He also drives as if the laws of physics don't apply to him. Well, fortunately, this time, the guy was careful and didn't plow right into me.
4) The sports car owner: in this case it was this guy in a 3rd-generation F body--some variety of Firebird, circa 1988--and the car didn't even have Posi, so he was funneling all the torque from his car's V8 engine through one tire. Whenever he even breathed on the throttle, the car's rear end kicked out. He can't go faster than 20 without risking a catastrophic skid because his car's wide tires act like skis. This anus didn't seem to get the concept of pick a lane; instead of driving in the lane that had just been plowed, for some reason he thought it was better to drive half in that lane and half in the unplowed morasse, thus making it impossible for anyone to pass him. (I did get around him.)
5) The Jeep Wrangler: "Hell, this car comes with a factory roll bar! I can go as fast as I want! You're an asshole for going under 55 in the snow when I'm driving a Jeep Wrangler!"
6) The gunnie in a Jeep Cherokee: ...I just wanted to go get my freakin' gun, damn it, not deal with all these assholes. *sigh* My top speed on the trip was 43-ish on a 1-mile section of 394 which was pretty clear. I stopped at McDonald's for a bacon mofo, and took my usual route home from there; I averaged perhaps 30 MPH from there, which is not far off the usual speed. But there were no cars on that road, and I felt confident that I had the traction and maneuvering room to go that fast without undue risk.
I left the house at 2:35 and got home at 4:15. Shit.
...anyway I'm thinking about going out now and blowing the driveway for the first time of several. The deeper it gets, the harder it is to do, so I might as well suit up and do it.
I hope everyone else in the path of this crap is doing okay.