There was snow in the Seattle/Redmond area last night. From what I understand they had about 4 inches of snow and Microsoft's main campus is more or less shut down. Driving home last night was a nightmare for a lot of people. Now to be fair I understand that the real problem was ice as the early rain was mixed with snow. That would have caused problems anywhere.

The difference comes into play the next day. The sities and towns in the Seattle area do not have the equipment for clearing snow and ice. Cities and towns where I live do. So it is pretty unlikely that four inches of snow would shut any place around where I live. In fact we have had over a foot and a half (close to half a meter) of snow over night and still had schools open the next day. I know a teacher in Alaska where they have a lot of snow and a long hard winter and storms never close school there. If the area has the tools to clear the snow away, drivers who are used to driving in snow, and general experience around the issue it is hardly an issue at all. On the other hand when those things are not true even a small amount of snow can cause a large amount of problems.

So how do you define a lot of snow? It depends on the context. The same is true of heat (is there a lot of air conditioning? Is it also humid?), and cold (are houses built to be heated and kept warm) and probably rain as well. It is an interesting world we live in.