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I bet you've never tried blowing slush on a 5° day either, what was happening is when the liquid water came in contact with the below freezing snowblower parts, it would freeze a layer, then more water, another layer, before you know it, the 5" diameter shoot only has a 2" diameter opening, also, the augers were building up with ice the same way reducing the effectiveness of the auger, they are snowblowers afterall, not slush suckers
I doubt you could get a wheeled snowblower to "float" on top of the slush layer, my track machine would "float" a few feet, then sink, and my track machine has probably 2 full square feet of surface compared to maybe a half a square ft of surface