This somewhat describes where I live. It can be 80F one week in February, and, like this week, in the 30-40F range, sometimes with hail and snow flurries. March-April are very tough to predict here.
Then you'd leave your winters on until late april or maybe early May.
The point is you want the best possible tires on for dangerous conditions. The most dangerous conditions are when there's wet on the roads of some kind, either below 35-40 or above it.
In sub-40 wet winters are the best tires. By a large margin
In above-40 wet conditions summers are the best, with winter tires being not that far behind.... and all seasons being pretty terrible compared to either.
Driving above 40 with winters instead of summers (ie you keep them on a little too long) is still considerably safer than driving with all seasons in either condition.
Except when the seasons don't line up nice, for various reasons, and then you're driving summer tires on cold, wet, and/or snowy ground. Winter tires when it's hot isn't as bad, mostly it's the money burn....until your tread is gone really early and now the tires aren't so great anymore, oops.
Maybe you've never notice or lived anywhere that can be either be well over 40F or snowing on any given day of the year?
Nope, I haven't.
I've lived as far north as Ontario Canada and as far south as Atlanta Georgia, and it's never, ever, been the case where it could be over 40
or snowing on
any day of the year.
When you switched your tires over changed- places I've lived in the south it was pretty safe to keep summers on until at least late October or November... in Canada you did it at least a month or two earlier... and depending on the given year that might mean you're running your winter tires more than absolutely needed.... but small price to pay for dozens of feet shorter stopping distance.
There's no amount of wearing tires out faster that's worth crashing the car over.
But the only place it's generally an UTTER AND TOTAL SURPRISE when you get snow without ANY warning are places in the deep south- where if that happens you don't need the tires anyway. You're not going anywhere. The roads are undriveably bad and everything is already closed and likely will be for a few days because there's like 2 plows in the whole state... (I exaggerate- but not by much)
And even then it never happens for at least 6+ months out of the year.
Much less have weeks notice in advance....and even if you could crystal ball far enough ahead, what are you driving on until then?
Not sure what you mean here?
If there's basically no chance it's below 40 you're driving on summer tires. If there is a chance it'll be below 35-40 (and you need to drive- not talking about "Oh, it'll dip to 38 tuesday at 3 am and then warm up" stuff) you're driving on winters.
If you're gonna be driving, I dunno, say from Las Vegas proper up to the top of Mount Charleston, where it'd be 70 when you pull out of the garage and 30 and wet at the top, you have snow tires on.
Changing wheels doesn't take all that long.
Dealing with a car accident because you took an extra 50 feet to stop with all-seasons does.
There are lots of driving issues where acceleration gets you out of issues.
Sure- and winter tires outperform the hell out of all seasons in those situations too, as shown by the data I cited from Edmonds testing.
