Far Northeast Iowa checking in – hard to get more Midwestern than that. Most of the damage is to Arbor Vitas, a bushy and fast growing species of evergreen favored for windbreaks and shelter belts. A hot dry summer with a brutally cold and long winter is primarily responsible. If we had had a good build up of moisture when this past winter set in it would be a different story but the combination was a killer. Most of the injury is on the lower limbs and the up-wind sides. In a couple years, assuming good conditions, most of them will sprout new growth and the winter kill will not be all that noticeable. It does make the trees more susceptible to all sorts of infections , bugs and parricides, however.
Could you explain your use of “parricide” in this context? Parricide AFAIK means the murder of a close relative. The only botanical connection I can see is something called “Allelopathy” wherein a plant deposits toxins in the surrounding soil to inhibit growth of competing plants, including its own offspring. I guess that’s sort of the same thing…
Parasite, perhaps.
That would be boring. 
Central WI here. Our Arbor Vitae are quite brown and ugly this year and our cedars took a beating. We’ll see what comes back.
Do not select the first option Spell Check offers up.
Chicago northern suburbs: my yews suffered, but different locations had different amounts of browning. They’ve all survived, they just have a lot of dead needles at the ends of branches. Most of them will be fine if left alone to grow out, the dead stuff will fall off and there are lots of new young shoots. Two of them are so browned that it will take a lonnnng time for them to recover, so I’m going to replace them. Sigh.
I was told (have no idea about validity) that part of the problem is being covered entirely by snow and getting no sunshine. OTOH, I was also told it’s just the extreme cold. No clue which to believe, the circumstantial evidence seems to favor the “covered entirely by snow” theory since the front bushes are doing well in the areas where they had sun.
And yes, I see lots of similar as I drive around.
There are many different kinds.