Two years ago I spent most of December in eastern Siberia, working outside at temperatures as low as -50 F, while my wife reports that back in Wisconsin, it was 90 to 100 degrees warmer. When I got home near midnight on Christmas Eve, it was above freezing, with no snow on the ground.
Last year, we had over 30 inches of snow, and a very white Christmas, and I stayed home dealing with it. The entire season broke our snowfall record by nearly two feet, at over 100 inches between November and March.
This December, we are already ahead of last year for snowfall, and it got very cold right after Thanksgiving. Just today I finally unfroze the doors in my pickup, which were iced in after a freezing rain. Spare vehicles are useless when you cannot even pry the doors open with a screwdriver!
I am fighting a problem with a Buick sedan that got just enough moisture during that same storm 2-1/2 weeks ago to alternately freeze the doors shut or jam the door latches so that they will not close. Took care of that today with a heat gun, only to hear that we will now have freezing rain with thunderstorms over the weekend. Here we go again! The worst problems seem to be when it stays below zero on the Fahrenheit scale, because nothing wants to work right. You've got to experience 50 below like I saw two years ago in Siberia to really appreciate what else can go wrong if it gets even colder. So count our blessings and brace for the next adventure! Keep those cameras handy.