Is my norway spruce safe in a storm?
It handles ice better than most conifers its size, because flexible wood and drooping branchlets shed load rather than catching it, and the broad root plate keeps it upright. The failures you do see are whole-tree windthrow on saturated clay after a wet spring, and single large lower limbs tearing out at attachments a canker had already weakened.
What pruning can and can't prevent
Limit it to removing dead, broken, or crossing limbs — the sweeping pendulous side branches are the entire character of the tree, and because spruce sets no buds on old bare wood, cutting them back leaves permanent holes. Late winter is the window, and the specific trap is limbing it up to reclaim lawn: that exposes the trunk and destroys the low skirt that made it a screen in the first place.
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