"It's not about pilots and flying. The airports simply can't keep up with the snow removal and deicing that's required to move all the flights."
cxorcist,
Precisely. It's also about ATC capacity...and airlines keeping track of who went where when they couldn't go someplace else...angry pax/crews stranded in airports.
I've been lost with a few crews in a hotel for several days when I couldn't reach crew sked to even tell them who I was or where.
We used to pretty much launch the fleet into the maw of the beast. Preemptive cancellations are a much better idea. I'm hard pressed to criticize management decisions in this regard.
But I can tell you if you fly in the NE quadrant of the USA for very long, you're going to see a lot more winter than you'd like. It doesn't make any pilot demographic better than any other. It's the job you signed up for and you'd better be damned careful at it.