Didn't hear the interview (don't listen to 3CR!) but I have spent over 25 years organising snowclearing off that runway in one form or another and being in charge for some of it.
One thing you learn early on is you can never be right, you can be 'slightly not wrong' at best. If you do a good job, no one thanks you, if you get it wrong, everyone beats a path to your door to complain.
Living not far from the airport I would say we have more than just a few cm of snow in the last couple of weeks. I am not surprised there have been lengthy closure periods.
The problem is in this country, we don't get enough snow. If we got feet of it
every winter then we would gear up accordingly. But we don't and it is expensive kit to have sitting around. I recall that we had quite a good lot of kit but serviceability becauses a problem when it sits around much of the year, usually in the open.
If the weather is such that you take a hit once in a few years then in the long run it is probably not as expensive than having a lot of kit sitting around doing nothing and deteriorating. It is similar to an airline taking a decision to only have Cat II ILS and not III and taking a hit when conditions are really bad.
When it comes to snowclearing, everyone's an expert but few have actually done it.