Winter in Wisconsin has been rather milder than usual, so far.
I just realised I misread your original post…
Same here, in da UP. It’s been sunny & warm (mid- to high-30s) several days this month, which is very, very strange for this time of year. Typically, if it’s sunny out, it’s freeeezing - like ten below zero - in January and February. The clouds act like blankets and keep the heat near the ground; if they leave, we’re frigid.
But not this year. I’d say so far it’s been much milder than normal. A decent amount of snow, too, which makes for a really nice winter - snow to play in, warm weather so you actually want to go out and play in it.
It was the winter of '41/'42 they spent just outside Moscow, and had a real lack of winter equipment. The Winter of '43 was probably not much different weather wise, but the Wehrmacht had gotten around to issuing better equipment (which still had troubles reaching the far off fronts like Stalingrad) and their troops had some experience, so it probably wasn’t as bad, altough as bad in this regard is still pretty hash…
That being said, even in the modern Western armies with the proper Winter equipement, surviving, let alone fighting, in a Eastern Front '40s winter would have been hash without oodles of proper training 
ETA: To answer the OP - the cold spell we had in early January, with temperatures in the -25C - -40C, was probably the longest such spell since the mid-eighties, based on various news reports. Which is great for those of us who likes cold weather
rather mild here in Quebec. The coldest it has been was arond -20C, while typically we get to somewhere in the -25 to -30 range. Of course, winter isn’t over by far. Considerably less snow than normal too. We had one 10" fall in mid-December and then nothing but flurries and maybe 1" falls. That big storm that hit NY, PA, MD, and VA missed us entirely and that day was cold and sunny here. They are predicting cold over the weekend and then +7 and rain on Monday.
In fact I sunned myself at the pool this afternoon and have promised myself I will actually get in the fool thing tomorrow.
I have been in the Middle East for 13 years now. More than long enough.
It’s 70 degrees and sunny today in Mississippi. Of course, last week and the week before that were pretty cold and miserable, so it evens out.
In Chicago, our winter so far, has been much warmer than last winter. But it ain’t over yet. Chicago has been known for sub zero temps and snow storms in February
::shrug::
It’s been bad for some folks who live in the southern part of the USA. Good ol’ Jet Stream has been bringing some cold temps down there. Of course, that creates a trough that locks in more mild air in some places farther north.
I’m gonna be buying stock in companies that make marine engine blocks, because most boat owners down south don’t drain their blocks or make any attempts to winterize, and old mother nature has cracked thousands of 'em.
While the yearly total is under, the thing to keep in mind is that most of it came in January. I don’t know how things are in NH, but in VT, we had already set a record snowfall for January by the 14th.
Plus we had a couple weeks straight of bitter cold…but after having spent a winter in Saranac Lake, NY once, I can tell you that nothing here in VT compares to the cold up there.
Not what the OP wanted as far as comparison to the 40’s. But below is a .pdf newsletter from the National Weather Service - Omaha Neb area that recalls the December of 1983. 205 straight hours of not ever being above 0* F. That’s not above 0 * F. :eek:
8 and 1/2 days of below 0* And even when it did finally get above 0*, it wasn’t by much.
I remember that winter very well. The wife and I were recently married, and I spent much of that time crawling around on bare ground, underneath cars, trying to fix one or the other of our two clunkers. We bought our first NEW car in Spring of '84.
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/images/oax/news/newsletter.pdf
So, how has this winter been relative to past winters? Not bad, not great, but not bad.
How bad WAS this winter? …Uh, it’s just 1 month done!
It seems nobody has the answer. May I restate the question?
Does the current winter measure up to the harsh winters of the WWII era?
I think your were referring to the winer of 1941 rather than 1943 in Moscow. A hum-dinger of a winter to be sure with temps of -40C or even colder. There are colder places to be found, but not with big ass cities in them.
One place where it can get that cold is in Minneapolis. Today it rained all day. In January. This is the first time I can ever remember such a thing happening here. It almost never rains in January, let alone all day long.
The coldest it’s been so far this winter is about -14F.
Were the winters of WWII really all that remarkable? Were they actually significantly colder than average? I know people and troops suffered, but war sucks that way.
I don’t know if those winters were really bad from an objective point of view. You read about the misery, but a lot of that was people were unable to huddle inside and stay safe.
By the way, we’ve had a very moderate winter in southeast Michigan.
Last year, we had more snow than any other year in recent memory. This year, we’ve had barely any.
Oh, and it’s pretty warm this year too. It’s 11:30 PM right now and 36 F outside right now. Not bad!
I just want to note that during the cold snap that NA and Europe experienced earlier this winter, there were places that were abnormally warm. Greenland, for instance. For a while there, it was warmer in Godthaab than in places like London and Dallas! The reason for this is that the Gulf Stream was somehow diverted into the Davis Strait (west of Greenland).
My condolences.
We’ve been having some really great rain here for the past few weeks. I can practically feel that aquifer filling up.