Are All-Terrain Tires Good in Snow?

Short answer: Some all-terrain tires are genuinely good in snow, and some are barely better than a highway tire once the road packs down. Two things decide which kind you're driving on: whether the sidewall carries the three-peak mountain snowflake symbol, and how much tread is left. A snowflake-rated all-terrain with 6/32 inch or more of tread handles plowed and packed snow well. Without the symbol, or below 6/32 inch, it falls off fast. And no all-terrain grips ice like a dedicated winter tire.

Most answers to this question stop at "all-terrains are fine in light snow." Nobody defines light snow, and nobody tells you which mark on the sidewall or which tread depth moves your tire from one side of that line to the other. That's what the table below does.

I'm Dennis Feldman, and I handle fitment questions at Performance Plus Tire every day. Every October the same call comes in from truck and SUV owners with a ski trip or a mountain cabin on the calendar: do I need winter tires, or will my all-terrains get me there? The answer is printed on your sidewall and sitting in your tread grooves, and you can check both in about two minutes.

How your all-terrain tires will do in snow, by sidewall mark and tread depth:

Your All-Terrain Tire	Plowed or Packed Snow	Deep, Unplowed Snow	Ice and Freezing Rain	Counts as a Snow Tire for California Chain Control?
Mountain snowflake symbol, 6/32 inch or more of tread	Good. Close to an all-weather tire	Good, if the vehicle has the ground clearance	Weak. Well short of a winter tire	Yes. The snowflake mark comes with M+S
Mountain snowflake symbol, under 6/32 inch	Fair, and dropping with every 32nd	Fair. Shallow grooves pack up and stop clearing	Poor	No. Below the 6/32 inch minimum
M+S only, 6/32 inch or more	Fair. M+S is not a snow traction test	Good. Big voids dig and self-clean	Poor	Yes
M+S only, under 6/32 inch	Poor	Fair to poor	Poor	No
No M+S or snowflake mark	Poor	Depends on the tread design	Poor	No
For comparison: dedicated winter tire, 6/32 inch or more	Excellent	Good, limited by ground clearance	Best you can get without studs	Yes

Look hard at row three. An M+S all-terrain with 6/32 inch of tread is legal as a snow tire under California chain control and under the Colorado Traction Law. Legal and good are two different tests, though. The M+S mark is assigned by tread design, not by a snow traction test, so a tire can meet the law and still be the weakest thing on your truck when the road packs down.

Which All-Terrain Tires Are Good in Snow?

The ones that carry the three-peak mountain snowflake symbol on the sidewall of the size you're buying. That symbol is the dividing line in the all-terrain category, and it splits the aisle almost in half.

The all-terrain category was built around gravel, dirt, and highway miles. A traditional all-terrain compound is mixed for cut and chip resistance and long tread life, with big tread blocks, stone ejectors in the grooves, and relatively few sipes. That's exactly what you want on a rocky forest road in August. It's not what you want on packed snow at 25 degrees F, because snow grip comes from two things a traditional all-terrain is short on: lots of small biting edges, and rubber that stays flexible in the cold.

The newer generation of all-terrains closed that gap on purpose. Engineers added full-depth sipes, which keep their biting edges as the tread wears, and shifted to compounds that stay pliable well below freezing. Several of the best-selling all-terrains now carry the snowflake rating, including the BFGoodrich All-Terrain T/A KO3 and the Falken Wildpeak A/T4W. Others in the same aisle, built for long highway life or maximum cut resistance, don't.

Check the size, not the brochure

The rating lives on the sidewall of each individual size, not on the tire line as a whole. Before you buy, confirm the symbol on the exact size, load range, and construction you're ordering, and confirm it again on the tires when they're mounted. If you're shopping by photo, look for a mountain with three peaks and a snowflake inside it, molded near the size and load markings. Our guide to the snowflake tire symbol covers the marking in more detail.

Why rubber temperature matters more than tread pattern

An aggressive-looking tread fools a lot of people. Big blocks and wide voids look like snow tires, and in deep, loose snow they do dig. On packed snow the rubber matters more than the pattern. Tread compounds built for summer heat and sharp rocks start to stiffen somewhere around 40 to 45 degrees F, and stiff rubber can't conform to the micro-texture of packed snow. For more on how cold changes grip, see our breakdown of what temperature is too cold for all-season tires.

What Does the Mountain Snowflake Symbol Actually Test?

This is the part almost nobody explains, and it's the reason a snowflake-rated all-terrain still isn't a winter tire.

Under the U.S. Tire Manufacturers Association definition, a tire earns the three-peak mountain snowflake by passing the ASTM F1805 snow traction test. The tire runs on medium-packed snow, and the test measures how much traction it develops while accelerating, compared with a standardized reference tire. To qualify against the current 16-inch reference tire, it needs a snow grip index of at least 1.12, meaning about 12 percent more accelerating traction than the reference. The test is run with the air at 38 degrees F or colder and the snow surface between roughly 5 and 25 degrees F.

Now look at what that test leaves out:

• Braking. The rating measures pulling away, not stopping.
• Cornering. Lateral grip isn't part of the test.
• Ice. The test surface is packed snow, not ice or freezing rain.
• Worn tread. The tire qualifies new, at full tread depth.

Every one of those gaps matters on a truck or SUV. A heavy vehicle needs more stopping grip than a light one, and stopping is the one thing the symbol doesn't measure. The rating is still the best single signal you have for snow traction, and it's far more meaningful than M+S. Just read it for what it is: proof the tire can pull you up a packed-snow grade when it's new.

How Much Tread Does an All-Terrain Tire Need for Snow?

Plan on 6/32 inch as your snow floor. Below that, an all-terrain's snow traction falls off much faster than its wet or dry traction does.

Snow traction depends on groove volume. As the tire rolls, the grooves pack with snow, and that packed snow grips the snow on the road, because snow sticks to snow better than rubber does. The sipes add biting edges on top of that. As the tread wears, the grooves get shallower, they hold less snow, and the sipes get shorter. Tires with sipes that stop short of the full tread depth lose those edges entirely partway through their life.

Two of the strictest mountain states draw their legal line in the same place. California defines a snow tire for chain control as one marked M+S with at least 6/32 inch of tread. Colorado's Traction Law requires at least 3/16 inch, which is the same 6/32 inch. NHTSA's minimum for any tire on any road is 2/32 inch. That gap between 2/32 and 6/32 is where a lot of all-terrains spend their last winter: legal on a dry highway and nearly useless on a snowy grade.

What your remaining tread means in snow:

Remaining Tread Depth	Snow Traction	California Snow Tire / Colorado Traction Law	What to Do
10/32 inch or more	Full, for what the tire was designed to do	Meets both, if marked M+S or snowflake	Drive it this winter
7/32 to 9/32 inch	Noticeably reduced on packed snow	Meets both, if marked	Fine for plowed roads; budget for replacement by next fall
6/32 inch	At the edge	Just meets both	Replace before the first mountain trip
3/32 to 5/32 inch	Poor	Fails both	Replace now if you drive in snow
2/32 inch or less	None worth counting on	Fails both, and below the NHTSA minimum	Replace before driving anywhere

Why LT all-terrains last longer in snow

Here's a number most buyers never see. Most P-metric all-terrains start out with roughly 11/32 to 14/32 inch of tread. Most LT all-terrains start around 15/32 to 18/32 inch. Subtract the 6/32 inch snow floor, and a typical LT all-terrain has about 10/32 inch of usable snow life, while a typical P-metric all-terrain has about 7/32 inch. Same category, same snowflake symbol, and potentially a full extra winter of usable snow tread. Measure in the inner, center, and outer grooves on all four tires and go by the lowest reading. For more on reading wear, see our article on what tread depth to replace tires at.

Are All-Terrain Tires Good on Ice?

No, not compared with a winter tire, and the snowflake symbol doesn't change that.

Ice traction comes from a very soft compound, dense siping, and, in the best studless winter tires, a rubber texture that wicks away the thin film of water that sits on top of ice. All-terrain tires are built in the opposite direction. Even the snowflake-rated ones use firmer compounds so they can survive gravel, rock, and 50,000-plus highway miles. On glare ice and freezing rain, that firmness costs you stopping distance.

There's a separate rating for this. The Ice Grip symbol, defined under ISO 19447, comes from a braking test on ice, and a tire has to stop measurably better than a reference tire to earn it. As the U.S. Tire Manufacturers Association describes it, the symbol is meant for passenger tires designed for ice conditions. That leaves LT all-terrains out entirely, and it tells you how far apart the two categories sit on ice.

If your winter means black ice on the morning commute, freezing rain, or icy shaded switchbacks, the honest answer is a dedicated winter tire. A few all-terrain lines are molded to accept studs, and studs change the ice picture completely where they're legal. Without studs, slow down, open up your following distance, and don't let four-wheel drive talk you into speeds the tires can't stop from.

Are All-Terrain Tires Better Than All-Season Tires in Snow?

It depends on the marks on both tires, and that's the comparison most people get backward.

• Snowflake-rated all-terrain vs. ordinary M+S all-season: the all-terrain wins on packed snow and in deep snow. A typical all-season carries only the M+S mark, which isn't a traction test.
• M+S-only all-terrain vs. ordinary M+S all-season: the all-terrain usually wins in deep, loose snow, because the bigger voids dig and clear. On packed snow it's closer than the tread pattern suggests, and on ice neither is good.
• M+S-only all-terrain vs. snowflake-rated all-weather tire: the all-weather tire usually wins on packed snow and slush. It's lighter, more heavily siped, and built with a cold-weather compound. The all-terrain only pulls ahead when the snow gets deep or the road turns to dirt.

The all-terrain's quiet advantage is depth. Starting with more tread means it stays above the 6/32 inch snow floor for more of its life, and that matters more in year three than it does on the day you buy it.

Are LT All-Terrain Tires Worse in Snow?

On packed snow, an LT all-terrain can give up some grip compared with the same tread in a P-metric size. In deep snow and over the life of the tire, it often comes out ahead. The variable is construction and air pressure, not the tread pattern.

LT tires use heavier casings and stiffer sidewalls so they can carry more load, and they run at higher pressures to do it. A Load Range E tire can be rated for up to 80 psi. A stiffer tire at higher pressure puts down a smaller, firmer footprint, and on packed snow a smaller footprint means fewer sipe edges touching the road at once. The P-metric or XL version of the same tread, in the same size, usually runs in the mid-30s psi and flexes more.

The fix is to run the right pressure, not the maximum. If your truck came from the factory on LT tires, use the pressure on the door placard. If you upgraded from P-metric to LT, use the load-inflation table for the load you actually carry, and don't simply pump the tires to the number molded on the sidewall. NHTSA also points out that tire pressure drops as the outside temperature drops, so check your pressures cold, after the truck has sat for at least three hours. Our comparison of P-metric vs. LT tires covers the construction differences in more detail.

Airing down in deep snow

Off pavement, in deep unplowed snow, dropping pressure lengthens the footprint and helps an all-terrain float and claw. It's a legitimate trail technique, but it comes with rules: low speed only, no pavement, and air back up before you hit the highway. A soft tire rolling over rocks you can't see under the snow is how sidewalls get cut, and a cut sidewall is a different problem entirely. If you've been aired down on a rocky trail, check your sidewalls against our guide to whether sidewall damage is safe to drive on before your next highway run.

Are Mud-Terrain and Rugged-Terrain Tires Good in Snow?

Same rule, more extreme results.

Mud-terrain tires have huge voids, very few sipes, and hard compounds built to resist chunking. In deep, loose snow they paddle through better than almost anything. On packed snow and ice they're among the worst tires you can run, because there's so little rubber touching the road and so few edges in that rubber. Most mud-terrains carry M+S, and very few carry the snowflake symbol.

Rugged-terrain tires, the hybrids between all-terrain and mud-terrain, land in between. Some carry the snowflake symbol and some don't, and that mark matters more than the category name. If the sidewall has the mountain and snowflake, treat it like a rated all-terrain. If it doesn't, treat it like a mud-terrain on packed snow.

Do 4WD and AWD Make Up for All-Terrain Tires in Snow?

They help you go. They don't help you stop or turn, and that's where snow accidents happen.

Four-wheel drive and all-wheel drive split engine power across all four tires, so each tire has less work to do pulling away from a stop. That's a real advantage on a snowy grade. Braking, though, has always used all four tires, on every vehicle. Two-wheel drive and four-wheel drive stop on exactly the same four contact patches, and cornering grip works the same way.

Here's the twist. The snowflake test measures accelerating traction, which is the part your drivetrain already helps with. Stopping and cornering are the parts the rating doesn't measure and four-wheel drive doesn't improve. So the weakest link on a 4WD truck in snow is always the same: how well the tires stop it. That's also why a heavy pickup on marginal tires feels confident right up until the first stop sign at the bottom of a hill.

Do All-Terrain Tires Count as Snow Tires for Chain Control?

Often, yes, as long as they're marked and have enough tread. Here's how the two most common rule sets work.

California chain control

California defines a snow tire as one marked M+S, or something similar, on the sidewall, with at least 6/32 inch of tread. A snowflake-rated all-terrain qualifies because the snowflake symbol always comes with M+S.

• R1: Chains are required on the drive wheels unless you're in a car, pickup, or SUV under 6,000 pounds with snow tires on at least two drive wheels, and not towing.
• R2: Chains are required unless you're in a car, pickup, or SUV under 6,500 pounds with four-wheel or all-wheel drive engaged, snow tires on all four wheels, and no trailer.
• R3: Chains on everyone. No exceptions.

Even when R1 or R2 lets you skip them, you still have to carry chains. Two things trip up truck owners. A worn all-terrain under 6/32 inch doesn't count no matter what's on the sidewall. And a lot of heavy-duty pickups weigh too much for the R2 exemption, so they chain up regardless of tires. Our article on whether you need chains with 4WD or AWD in California covers chain control in more detail.

Colorado Traction Law

Colorado's Traction Law is in effect every year from September 1 through May 31 on the I-70 mountain corridor between Dotsero and Morrison, and the state can activate it on other highways when conditions call for it. To comply, your tires need at least 3/16 inch of tread and one of these: the M+S mark, the mountain snowflake symbol, or an all-weather rating. If your tires don't meet that standard, you need chains or an approved alternative traction device. Getting caught without either carries a $50 fine plus a $17 surcharge.

Notice what both states accept: M+S alone, at 6/32 inch, is legal. That's the gap the decision table at the top points to. The law sets a minimum for being on the road, not a standard for being good at it.

Should You Get Winter Tires or All-Terrain Tires?

Answer that by the winter you actually drive in, not the one in the commercials. Find your row.

What to run, based on your winter:

Your Winter	What to Run	Why	What You End Up Buying
A few mountain weekends a year on plowed highways	Snowflake-rated all-terrains with 8/32 inch or more, plus chains in the truck	Handles packed snow and satisfies most chain control levels short of R3	Snowflake-rated all-terrains when your current set nears 6/32 inch
Daily driving in a snow-belt town, packed snow for weeks at a time	Dedicated winter tires from late fall to spring	Stopping and cornering on packed snow, where the rating doesn't test	A winter tire set, ideally on its own wheels
Rural or unplowed roads, deep snow, ranch or trail use	Snowflake-rated all-terrains or rugged-terrains with deep tread	Void volume and ground clearance matter most in deep snow	Snowflake-rated all-terrains, LT if you haul or tow
Black ice, freezing rain, icy shaded roads	Studless winter tires, or studded tires where they're legal	No all-terrain is built for ice braking	Winter tires
Towing or plowing with a 3/4-ton in snow	Snowflake-rated LT all-terrains at the correct load pressure	You need the load range and the snow rating at the same time	Snowflake-rated LT all-terrains in Load Range E
Current all-terrains at 6/32 inch or less going into winter	New tires before the first storm	They fail the snow tire definition in California and Colorado	A new set, all four at once

If two rows fit you, go with the one that involves more ice or more weeks of packed snow. The tire that handles your worst day is the right tire.

What the Wrong Tire Is Costing You Every Time It Snows

Running a worn or unrated all-terrain into winter doesn't fail all at once. It costs you in steps, and each step costs more than the last.

1. Margin you can't see. Longer stops and wider turns on packed snow. You won't notice on the drive up. You'll notice the first time something stops in front of you on a downhill.
2. A turnaround or a ticket. Under 6/32 inch, you're not running snow tires in California or Colorado. That means chaining up in the slush on the shoulder, getting turned around at the checkpoint, or a $50 fine plus surcharge in Colorado.
3. A slide into the curb or the berm. A low-speed slide often ends with a wheel hitting a curb or a buried rock. That means a bent wheel, a cut or bulged sidewall, and an alignment.
4. A collision. Your deductible, a rental, weeks without the truck, and a higher premium at renewal.
5. The fix. A set of snowflake-rated all-terrains, or a dedicated winter set on its own wheels so you can swap them yourself every fall. Our guide to downsizing for a winter wheel and tire package explains why many drivers drop a wheel size for that second set.

Step five costs less than step three, and it can be in your driveway before the first storm.

How to Tell If Your All-Terrain Tires Are Ready for Winter

Do this in the driveway before your first mountain trip. It takes about ten minutes.

1. Find the marks. Look for the three-peak mountain snowflake and the M+S on at least one sidewall of each tire. Check all four, because mismatched sets are common after a single-tire replacement.
2. Measure the tread. Use a tread depth gauge in the inner, center, and outer grooves of every tire. Write down the lowest reading on each.
3. Compare to 6/32 inch. At or below 6/32 inch, the tire isn't a snow tire under California or Colorado rules. Between 7/32 and 9/32 inch, it works on plowed roads but won't last another full winter.
4. Check load range and pressure. Note whether you're on LT or P-metric tires, then set pressure cold to the placard, or to the load table if you upgraded to LT.
5. Find your row. Match your winter to the table above. If it says winter tires, an all-terrain, even a rated one, isn't the right tool.
6. Pack the chains. If you're driving California mountain roads, you have to carry them under R1 and R2 even with qualifying tires. Practice putting them on once in the driveway.

Conclusion

All-terrain tires can be good in snow, but the category name doesn't tell you whether yours are. The sidewall does. A three-peak mountain snowflake symbol means the tire passed a packed-snow traction test when it was new. Your tread depth tells you how much of that is left, and 6/32 inch is where both the snow performance and the legal definition run out. Even the best rated all-terrain won't stop on ice like a winter tire, and four-wheel drive won't cover for it.

Check your marks, measure your tread, and find your row. If your all-terrains are rated and deep, drive them with confidence and carry chains. If they aren't, now is the time to fix it, before the first storm closes the pass. When you're ready, browse our winter and snow tires or call us with your size, and we'll tell you which tires in that size carry the snowflake.

Key Takeaways

Here's the whole answer in five lines.

• The snowflake symbol splits the category: A three-peak mountain snowflake all-terrain is good on packed snow. An M+S-only all-terrain is good in deep snow and fair at best on packed snow.

• 6/32 inch is the snow floor: California and Colorado both stop counting a tire as a snow tire below 6/32 inch, and snow traction falls off fast past that point.

• The rating tests going, not stopping: The ASTM F1805 test measures accelerating traction on packed snow. It doesn't test braking, cornering, or ice.

• LT tires trade some packed-snow grip for longer snow life: LT all-terrains typically start with 15/32 to 18/32 inch of tread, versus 11/32 to 14/32 inch for P-metric, but need the right pressure to grip.

• Ice needs a winter tire: No all-terrain, rated or not, brakes on ice like a dedicated winter tire, and 4WD doesn't help you stop.

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