You must be stealing our cold, I'm in short sleeves today. I cannot remember a winter milder than this.

Yeah... we're already up into the mid 80s during the afternoon here. VERY mild winter.

Cold is a relative thing.
65°Arizonans turn on the heat. People in Minnesota plant gardens.60°Californians shiver uncontrollably. People in Minnesota sunbathe. 50°Italian & English cars won't start. People in Minnesota drive with the windows down.. 40°Georgians don coats, thermal underwear, gloves, wool hats. People in Minnesota throw on a flannel shirt. 35° New York landlords finally turn up the heat. People in Minnesota have the last cookout before it gets cold.  20°People in Miami all die.  Minnesotans close their windows. 0°Californians fly away to Mexico.  People in Minnesota get out their winter coats.  10° below zero:  Hollywood disintegrates.  The Girl Scouts in Minnesota are selling cookies door to door  .20° below zero:Washington DC runs out of hot air. (Ya think? Nah.).People in Minnesota let their dogs sleep indoors.  30° below zero:  Santa Claus abandons the North Pole. Minnesotans get upset because they can't start the snowmobile.  40° below zero:ALL atomic motion stops.  People in Minnesota start saying..."Cold enough for ya?"  50° below zero: Hell freezes over.  Minnesota public schools will open 2 hours late.

Minnesotans are almost indistinguishable from Wisconsinites. The only way to tell them apart is to ask if they voted for Mondale in '84

Europe's getting the cold at the moment. Even in England it's going down to -12C (10F) which is pretty unusual, but in eastern Europe they're getting temperatures of -30C (-22F), gas pipes are freezing, not good.

Ha! Good one, Doc!

Yeah, like pad said, exceptionally cold throughout Europe, maybe not so much here. I remember plenty of winters like this from my childhood, along with a lot of milder winters, too.

Apparently The whole of Europe is getting a cold air mass from Siberia right now, which is causing snowing in Rome - they even had to close the tourist attractions their due to cold weather, and really severe cold (-30 Celsius) in the Italian Alps.

And the cold spell itself is suggested to be caused by decreased ice cover in the Barents Sea that is causing high pressure.

We have the same joke going around about Finns in Europe and better yet, about us Laplanders compared to rest of Finland and Europe.

I just put our bed linen out on the balcony for a while, wearing a t-shirt and flip-flops in -26 C or so. Cold enough for ya? :P