We've lived in the Arkansas Ozarks for forty four years now and I think every winter has been different.
In '73, our first winter here, it was a very warm one...lots of rain but warm
enough we thought we could make it in a tent.
In '76 (might have been '75?) there was a drop in temp to eighteen below Fahrenheit ...fortunately we had walls on the house by then and a
wood stove and no indoor plumbing to freeze, so survived that one all right...a little frost bite on my toes and some
chickens combs froze.
We've had winters with two feet of snow, thick layers of ice, sleet and pretty regular drops to single digit temps (Fahrenheit)...
Winters here are usually wet although I remember one dry one where we went into spring with a serious drought.
One late February into March, not long ago, it warmed so much that all of the
trees began leafing out and then in April we had two nights in the twenties that froze them...a lot of trees didn't recover from that.
This fall it seems to me the hard freezes came early, before many of the trees lost their leaves, and then we've had the usual warm up.
In other words winter here can be anything. Not much farther south in the state though, out of the mountains, it is more moderate.
We are noticing, where we are now, on the edge of this little town along a creek it can be ten degrees colder than the other edge of town up on the hill.
...and then there's the occasional winter tornado
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