From what I see locally the pre treating of roadways does a great job in melting the light snow we got this morning.
Tomorrow will be a greater test.

They pre treated our roads Wednesday evening, why I don't know.
They salted the roads today.

When I grew up , they were sanders not salters

HT in my younger days, I remember mountains of "cinders" stockpiled at various township locations. The cinders would be collected from school buildings, hospitals, industry, etc. until needed for winter road maintenance. In some areas, salt and 'shot' would be mixed and spread.

Today, as we know, mostly salt or calcium chloride is used which ain't worth a crap when the road surface temps hit single numbers.

As for pretreating, I never saw any good from it, if & when there was a continuous snowfall or temps. continued to fall below the effective threshold.

More times then not, the initial snow melts, allowing for ice to form beneath the continued snowfall.

Love them PENNDOT Supervisors standing in front of the cameras boasting "we've pretreated the roads" in anticipation of the storm.

I'd much rather hear, "we've got the state employees sitting in their equipment so we can "plow with the storm".

Many areas have installed piping to handle stormwater where they used to have ditches.  Sand and cinders work fine for traction where you have ditches, you just have to clean them out with a backhoe in the spring,  but pipes clog rapidly with the solids, and the Vactor trucks needed to clean them out are both expensive and very low capacity, so you are hauling the material to a dump site very frequently.  Salt (Sodium Chloride, Calcium Chloride, etc)  work fine down to about 10 °F, and do not clog the infrastructure.  Per-treatment is done with waste products from brewing operations, most have high magnesium chloride concentrations (another salt), and they are " sticky" so they hold to the lanes for a while and do start the melting process.  Also, when this material is sprayed onto the salt it does not bounce as much, so less can be applied per lane mile and it is still effective on the road surface and does not end up on the shoulder as rapidly.  These materials have extremely high Biochemical Oxygen Demand associated with them, they would be deadly to streams in warmer temperatures, but tend to be out of the system before BOD becomes a big problem in the warmer months. 
 
 
Plowing is generally ineffective until there is more than 3 inches of snow. 

Perhaps the best if not the most interesting way of dealing with snow and ice is what I witnessed on a trip to Iceland a few winters back.  Everything is geothermal including piping under the roads and sidewalks which melts the frozen precipitation quickly and efficiently.  While in Reykjavik it snowed a few inches almost daily but I did not see a snow plow or salt truck.  

Pretreat, cinders, salt or sand there was was never any greater sight for sore eyes then seeing "Salt Shakers" working the highways and byways during a snow event.  Though truth be known, at times, I have wished there was twice as many working along the leading edge of the weather in order to keep with the storm  Thanks to the many men and women who take pride in doing their job keeping our roads passable and much safer.
 
 
In another mater, this is gonna suck......  for a while.  Be safe,  I gotta go I hear the, SURFS UP!!
 
                   

How did everyone make out with the storm?
It's not snowing here now and we got about 8" light fluffy snowfall amount.
If the storm is over, it's far less than I expected , at least here. The north maybe got hit harder.
Gonna start the plowing and if it goes quickly, I'm going fishing 😀

Light snow turned to rain and now is about done falling......BBUUTTTT ,now I have to try and blow slush off the driveway before it freezes solid late this afternoon! My,I really hate this time of year!

Pretty spot on here about 16 inches of snow. Not so light and fluffy like LE but not thick  and mealy either. I just got through plowing out and will have to do a clean up this pm as it is still snowing lightly.  Blower and tractor is in garage thawed out before putting it away. I chose to stay home this weekend as I got a shot in my elbow Friday and it hurt like a motha

Clint, sorry to hear you're having problems with the elbow. Mentioning the shot made me cringe....a little more than I needed to know. Lol Godspeed with your recovery.

No more shoveling and plowing snow for me, at least this year. Temps did touch 40 last night and maybe mid 30s tonight then back to the 40s & 50s for lows, starting tomorrow. Highs are expected to be 60ish.

Couple Tornadoes reported to our north but we saw only brief heavy rain followed by gusty 35 MPH wind through the night.

Brought new meaning to the sign on my door. "IF THIS TRAILER'S AROCKIN, DON'T COME A KNOCKIN".😎

Be safe everyone.