I used to live in CA, there, chains and or 4WD with M/S tires can be required for one to be able to continue traveling on a highway, usually behind a highway patrol cruiser acting as a pilot vehicle that has travel restrictions due to snow and ice. Keep in mind that on CA roads the first rain usually looks like nascar race when the “big one” happens.
Ive driven through other states where there were large turn out areas for chain up and chain removal areas, but have not seen the “chains required” signs like I did in CA.
Now that I live in what I’m told is the North Central part of the country (SD) I’ve never once seen chain requirements, although the link that Zipper shows chains can be required here regardless of tires or 2WD / 4 WD I have not seen that they are required, yet, and the only vehicles I’ve seen with chains on here are a very few commercial vehicles like trash trucks or propane delivery trucks to get around on steep driveways. Here if the conditions are bad enough DOT closes the roads, I-90 has what looks like railroad crossing guards to keep people off the interstate and that’s mainly due to ice and high winds, smaller state highways just have barricades and the DOT webpage is an awesome resource for conditions. By far the worst conditions I’ve driven on is water on top of the ice or freezing rain, extremely slippery. Last night coming home was the typical ice covered road with a slushy mix on top of it, driving on it is not that much of a problem, but getting started from a stop light requires 4WD, even locking the rear diff doesn’t enable an alacritous departure from the light.
I’ve run Michelin LTX M/S light truck tire since the early 90’s and through the years those tires have evolved to their current iteration of the LTX Defender M/S 2 tires, this last one is an improvement over the LTX Defender M/S tires that I just replaced that had 58,000 miles on them and probably had another 10,000 in them before getting down to the wear bars. My friend has been running a Bridgestone dedicated ice tire on his Tundra now for a couple of years and reports great performance with them, he just put the LTX Defender M/S 2 tires on his work truck and reports similar performance to the Bridgestone ice tires.
I do have cable type chains for all wheels on my truck and toy hauler for winter travel to other states just in case. I also carry a folding aluminum snow shovel that fits in the under seat storage area in the back seat.
Some folks here in SD have studded snow tires and I think the state law is they can only be run from October through April.
I’m sure your 2020 F-150 has Advance Trac, traction control and anti lock brakes and it will amaze you how well those systems will assist you with icy road conditions.
My 2020 F-350 CC 4WD has locking manual / auto locking hubs, when conditions are changeable meaning roads that can go from icy / snowy to dry line I keep the hubs locked to make the switch from 2WD to 4 WD more quickly than the vacuum actuated locking of the hubs, not sure if your truck has locking hubs or not. Being that our trucks have part time 4WD systems you’ll get some hop when making tight slow speed turns on ice and snow, and that’s normal since there is no differential in the transfer case like all wheel drive systems do. Also don’t engage the 4WD if the the rear tires are spinning due to loss of traction, on the fly shifting into and out of 4 wheel high, 4H, is fine as long as the rear tires are not spinning due to loss of traction. Shifting into 4L requires the vehicle to be stopped, going into 4L, at least on my truck disables Advance Trac and traction control. I would assume that your truck may have different driving modes that is selectable at the end of the transmission shifter, tow haul, eco, slippery etc..I run mine in the slippery mode when it’s rainy or snowy and that helps too.
