Climate is what you expect. Weather is what you get.

-18 Fahrenheit on Monday. A high of 42 and wet today. Back down to a low of 5 Fahrenheit on Friday.

That counts as a "test winter" event for my part of the world.

I was walking around on Monday and many of the fruit trees looked dehydrated. Their bark looked shriveled. That is a good thing. Extreme cold damages trees when ice crystals form in the buds and they puncture cell walls. Dehydration of the parts above ground is correlated to better cold resistance.

They will be heading into Thursday and Friday all juiced up from the rain. That may be harder on some of them than the minus 18.