The wide tires will do well in fresh snow. It is hard pack and ice that they are a negative.

But lots of sipes help there too.

 

From the Pirate thread:

 

All I can say is that most guys I know that do snow plowing use a tall tire but not a wide one. The wide tire tends to try and plow through the snow. The wider the tire the more snow the tire has to push. On the highway when it's very wet with large puddles or slush, the narrower tire will cut through that crap more easily and not rip the steering wheel out of your hands like a wide tire would. Wide looks great but is not always the best choice. Just my 2-cents

 

I live in Maryland & we get snow sometimes & the best solution I've seen came from a friend up north. In Pennsylvania during the winter season its legal to run steel studed tires in PA on the street work great my buddy had a 2wd S-10 & would make to work in some pretty harsh weather I was really surprised 1st time I saw his setup snow piled in back with studed tires worked great for a 2wd.

 

I'm in ND and we can run studded tires as well. It's funny you should say that because I currently have an S10 2wd 5spd. The manual is nice as I have a little more control but personally I think it makes starting out on ice trickier... unless you really ease the clutch. Of course my tires are a factor there too. It's pretty terrible once the snow gets deeper than about 4". It's just too low to the ground and plows (or tries to plow) through the snow. It gets hung up on most anything. I'll admit my tires aren't great but I do have 350lbs of sand in the back over the axle. I considered getting studded tires this year but would likely need another set of wheels as well. I decided to save the money for an XJ instead.

I'm personally starting to like the idea of studded 31 x 9.5 or 10.5 for winter and a second set of 31 x 12.5 for summer.

 

get some mud terrain maxis bighorns studded and then sipe them in the middle.