Santa Barbara.
Not a thing.
Western Oregon here where snow and deep freezing temps are rare so winter prep is nothing too complicated.
Each October I go through my closet and put all my summer shirts, shorts, ankle socks, and similar summer wear in a plastic tub and put in the garage, swapping it for my winter clothes: flannel shirts, waffle weave undershirts, wool underwear, and thick socks.
The floor of our house is uninsulated and all the outdoor spigots are piped through the crawlspace so freezing isn’t much of a concern. I do put these on the spigots around this time of year for added insurance.
Starting in October I’ll put some Sta-Bil in the lawnmower fuel and make sure it’s run through the carb. I’m not sure it makes much of a difference. Next spring I’ll be getting an electric mower so this will likely be the last winter I have to do this. I don’t have any other gas-powered tools.
I’ll blow out the outdoor hoses of any water and make sure they’re hung up on the side of the garden shed.
I’ll change all the windshield wipers and fill up the washer fluid using a de-icing formula on all the cars and double check that there’s an ice scraper, whisk broom, an emergency blanket or two, jumper cables, a small air pump, and a few road flares in the trunk of each one. These items tend to just live in each car anyway so it’s really a matter of verifying that they’re all still there.
I also make sure I have a couple of weeks worth of supplies squirreled away in case we lose power or are snowed in:
- We have a fireplace we don’t use regularly but in an emergency it certainly does work, and will heat the living room. So I make sure I always have a cord or so of seasoned firewood under cover.
- I make sure we have several week’s worth of prescription medications on hand, as well as probably a month’s worth of canned, dried, and preserved food. We also make sure we have extra food for the pets.
- I make sure there’s enough propane to run the Coleman stove for several dozen meals if needed, and some charcoal for the Weber kettle grill in case we need or want to use that.
- Similarly, I have several power banks that stay charged and are used to keep cell phones topped up in case of a power outage.
I think that’s it.
Front Range Colorado -
Double bag/tarp the outside A/C. Alternating years (in general) check the outside wood of the catio in September and determine if it needs another coat of sealant. Bring in from said catio all less durable accumulated cat toys. Check emergency wood box (nearly 1m^3) and restock if needed (this is for rare occasions where I want/need to have a fire). Wash and put back in car backup heavy blanket and heavy pullover for emergencies. Check car emergency kit and replace anything expired: chemical warmers normally. Check to make sure car batteries aren’t within one year of expected lifetime (yeah, you only need that to happen to you ONCE!). Switch to heavy curtains in the bedrooms. Turn on supplemental room heater (oil radiator) for snake/lizard room. Put electric blanket on wife’s side of bed. Switch to flannel sheets on bed.
South Florida.
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Find your sweatshirt (singular) and jacket (singular) from the far back of the closet.
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Put away the non-perishable hurricane supplies and begin to use up any date-limited perishables like packaged food, water, or batteries.
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Get ready for the influx of Quebeckers who drive like pithed cattle and the NY/NJ-ites who drive like well, NY/NJ people: fast, aggressive, and horn-first / courtesy-last.
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Get used to needing to make reservations a week or 3 in advance for nice dinner out, rather than being able to walk up & sit down.
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Start praying for next March when they all leave again.
As the saying goes:
In Florida we can tell it’s Fall when all the license plates change color.
Central Kentucky:
My generator gasoline supplies have been secured, with one more generator test run due before winter.
Mouse traps have been set in key areas, as these critters like to come indoors to nest once cold nights hit.
Cutting down perennials with extensive mulching and hauling all the potted/tubbed figs into cold storage after several freezes (the first one is due tonight) are on the agenda.
Our summers are short. We never bother changing from winter to summer tires. I also don’t bother to take off the chains on the plow truck or 4x4 loader. No point in it really.
I didn’t get around to putting more fuel in plow and tractor, but I just do that with 5gal cans anyway.
I need to shut one valve that goes to an outside hose bib and drain that, and go to Denver to drain my mom’s house sprinkler system. That’s all done.
20 inches of snow this weekend. Was 0 degrees f this morning.
Then, it’s mostly phycological. We will have snow on the ground until May. What’s nice is that my Wife and I enjoy playing chess or cribbage. Passive solar house, so we get plenty of sunshine.
Clean up the backyard and the garden, drain the outside hoses and turn off the faucets, move the outside furniture inside, swap the snow tires, put the shovels/salt near the walk, make sure all the skis are waxed and sharpened.
Forgot to add: studded snow tires on both vehicles. Without these, getting home in winter is dicey (you can always get down the hill if you go slow.)
Not much to do really
Outside-
Take in the houseplants and yard ornaments, lower the sailboard mast we use to fly windsocks. Hang the kayaks on the rack. Unplug and empty the rain barrels.
Hired a guy to clean and fix our gutters.
Turn off the water to the outdoor spigot.
SE England. Much like @SanVito upthread, really (except that every two or three years we may get a day or three of “significant” [by UK standards] snow).
The outdoor furniture has been put in the shed. In a couple of weeks we need to get the gutters cleared of leaves. My allotment has already been closed down for the winter and the beds covered with fabric.
The big jumpers will be got out for indoor use, and heavy coats for outdoors. I cycle a lot so the main bikes (road, cyclocross) are being serviced. The cross is used on-road at this time of year, as wet leaves can be a hazard on a road bike. I’m already cycling in full gloves and longs (as opposed to shorts); I’ll get the rest of the winter gear out over the next few weeks.
The vitamin D is on the kitchen table. And soon we’ll start planning for the winter holiday - probably February, maybe a Greek island. These days we need that - the break is great, and the looking forward to it pulls you through the worst of a wet, dull, miserable winter.
j
South Bay Los Angeles
Over the years, I’ve realized that I follow a pretty set summer to winter routine:
Mid Summer: All the windows open, and on really hot days, fans running to circulate the air.
Early Fall: No more fans, but all the windows still open
Fall: (this year, the last week or so), start closing some windows as the days and nights get colder (it got down into the 50’s this morning, brrr)
Early winter (November/December): All the windows closed, heat supplied by the sunny days lasting well into the night indoors.
Deep winter: Heat turned on during the evening, into the morning. In really cold winters, heat runs 24 hours.
The latest I’ve ever gone before turning on the heat was the third week of December. This year it looks like I may be forced to turn it on in the next couple of weeks - a rough winter indeed 
I rarely run the heat for more than an hour at a time. The most it will run in a day will be four or five hours. My place is very well insulated.
Since we moved to a condo, not much. Change tires, check antifreeze and windshield washer fluid. Bring up the suitcase full of winter clothes, fill it with winter clothes and take it back down to the storeroom. Take the plants in from the balcony, fold the chairs and take the cushions down. And change the thermostat from 78 to 73. That last is the hardest since it is one of those fancy/schmancy ones that allows four different settings for weekdays and another four for weekends, but we are both retired and don’t need all that.
I restart my Kayo Sports subscription for the Rugby League season.
Mid-South Memphis. Tonight the temps are going to drop just below freezing for the first of three nights. Which is crazy after a month of temps in the mid 80s. I had the A/C on yesterday. I wasn’t expecting this so yesterday I had to rush to refurbish the shelter complex on the porch for the neighborhood kitties I care for. I’m not quite done (I’ve got to get more straw) but it will work for now if they want it. Today I put the insulation socks on the outside faucets and cut some flowers from the garden for a last centerpiece.
It will be back in the low 70s by the end of the week so there’s nothing else to be done right now. I had the furnace serviced last week and I’ll put extra blankets on the bed tonight. Sometime in the next few weeks I’ll stock up on some bottled water since we had boil-water advisories at least once in the last two winters because the water infrastructure here has badly deteriorated and can’t handle prolonged freezing. But I’m really hoping that we get a milder i.e. normal winter this year.
Wyoming:
In summer, I complain bitterly about the heat, and say that I like cold better than the heat because “I can always put on more clothes.”
That’s the extent of my “prep”. (I don’t ever even remember to winterize my lawnmower.)
In the winter, after Day 2 of snow and wind, I wish it was summer again.
That seems rather … circular.
My life schedule has always been chaotic so the 4 temps times 7 days thing is pure bother for me too.
My fancy thermostat(s) with all those adjustments also had / has a “hold” feature and I simply set it to e.g. 73 or 78, press “hold”, and leave it alone for ~6 months. I neither know nor care what the calendar-based settings are; they’re never used.
You might consult your owner’s manual and find an easier way than all that poking and prodding at a hard to use and hard to see UI twice per year.
This morning my gf reminded me that I need to put the plow blade back onto her Arctic Cat. The road we live on is private, which is cool in many ways, but the town doesn’t plow it. When snow is falling I usually drive out and back to create tire tracks, but if snowfall is heavy I’ll do a half-assed plow run.
Put in the screen door. I used to have to put plastic on the windows, but we replaced them
We also service the heating system, but that’s in the summer. I move the snowblower nearer the door and make sure the scraper and snow brush are in the car.
Here in southern Ontario in the Great White North, I do almost literally nothing in the way of winter prep. Car needs nothing – it has all-weather tires, which is fine for what little snow we normally get these days. Normally I’d shut off the outside taps from the inside and open the outside ones to prevent frost damage, but that’s a moot point this fall since I never turned them on this summer. I let nature do the lawn watering. So really my only two tasks are to cover the air conditioner unit against ice and snow which isn’t really strictly necessary, and look at this year’s snowplowing contract and curse it heartily. These days of little snow it’s more like insurance than an actual service.