Lake effect, so heavy and wet?
We get frozen blowing snow, with solid ice underneath. Fluffy stuff that comes down when it's 0*. I have pushed snow with my hood for 45 miles down the highway because the plows weren't out yet. Speed was limited by the visibility of how much snow was coming over the truck vs around it.
Two totally different traction bases.
Symbols on a tire don't mean shit outside of the test lab. That's a minimum, but gives you zero clue as to the useful traction available across all snow conditions.
I run studded ipikes or general arctic for the majority of winter, because I'm always on shit roads and you can't snowmobile without being in the weather.
The A/T's only get used for the freak storms early or late season (we went from 70* and sunny for a month to 15" of snow overnight and 20* for a week this spring).
My coworker has been buying BFG's since he bought his 03 new, thought they were the best thing ever. Tried the Falkon wild peak because the tire shop couldn't get the bfg's in time, and now he's questioning why he spent so much on the bfg's for the last 350k miles. Falkons were way cheaper and he loves them.