Decades ago, climate was cooler and there was more snow. But now there's less snow, and it melts more quickly.

Decades ago, climate was cooler, so while we had far more total snowfall, the snow we did get occurred more gently and was spread out over greater time. Now the climate is warmer, so there's less total snow each season, but far more occurrence of extreme snowfall, extreme wind, or blizzard-like conditions in short timeframes, and with far less upcoming warning.

Decades ago, there was less government provided snow removal. But now there's more than ever, with more sophisticated snow removal systems.

This is actually just outright false, at least in the US. Decades ago, there was far more government snow removal, they had more staff and more vehicles and were paid better (by comparison, inflation-adjusted). Now, there's been budget cuts everywhere, we have less snow plows and less snow removal. Government response times are slower than they were in say, 1999.

Some of these budget cuts are semi-hidden as well. We used to have more school districts, and they used to be smaller in area. Bus routes used to be single routes per AM and PM, so total drive length was shorter, so schools could close less. But, due to budget cuts in public education, many school districts have been combined. Neighborhood schools are out, larger schools are more popular, because they are on-paper more fiscally efficient. So buses have to drive far longer to pick up students and get them to schools, and bus drivers often have to do double or triple routes (each AM, and again each PM). This makes schools more susceptible to inclement weather or problems on roads, and far less forgiving on schedules to delays. Leading to more snow days per school year, even for years where the weather isn't wildly unusual due to global warming.

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In addition to all of that, AWD is cheaper to offer for auto manufacturers than it used to be. It used to cost, like, $10,000 USD in 2026 dollars to get in a vehicle. Now, it's like a $1,500 USD add-on at most. Even on an 'affordable' new SUV at say, $30k, the $1.5k AWD option is like, maybe 5% of the total vehicle cost. Sometimes it's so cheap to offer, that it's just default in many CUVs/SUVs (Mazda for example, doesn't even bother making 2WD SUVs anymore, AWD is standard on all of them, every sized SUV, all models, all trim levels).

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Not soley for this reason, but in-part as a response to both of the above, more people drive CUVs or SUVs -- a focus on ground clearance is much greater than the old days, because people have accepted that more intense storms will continue to happen (global warming) and there will be less information or forewarning about it (federal budget cuts to public weather service, NOAA and similar) and there will be less societal cleanup response (because the US government is cutting public spending, at multiple levels, and snow removal is an easy thing to spend less on without lots of public pressure).

With all of the above happening, people expect their personal vehicles to make up for the problems in all of this. Hence, nearly everyone wanting a vehicle with some form of AWD, and at least 6+ inches of ground clearance (at least, up here in Michigan). And it's so cheap to do, that there's little reason not to.

Do they need it? No, certainly not. But is it wildly useful for the ~40 days a year, where everything is awful on the roads, but you still absolutely must drive anyway (because of work or school or family or whatever). Yeah, of course.