In my experience, snow will settle easily from November through to
mid
February often better on hard surfaces. After mid February, the
insolation from the sun warms these hard surfaces more quickly and
they
stay warm for quite some time in the evenings.
Snow will settle on the insulated surfaces such as grass much better.
The snow that is melting quickly would have shown little sign of
thawing
just a few weeks ago. I don't think it's down to recent mild weather
as
it used to happen in the 50's and 60's as well.
I've seen snow settle on roads in March quite a few times; eg 1995,
2001, even for a short while last year (12th). I always associate the
'slushy cover on grass, nothing on concrete' type with already wet
surfaces, plus sleety/wet snow at about 2C. (Seen that in January too).
Whereas this occurred just before sunrise, with dry surface and 0C. I
agree that later snowfalls do tend to melt quicker, but they can
still(IME)settle on roads.


I like February - April snow because it clears from paths and roads
much
more readily but still looks good.
I tend to like March and April in general- you can get just about any
kind of weather, the days are getting longer, etc etc.. :-)

Edmund