Carl Churchill

We have extreme cold on the eastern U.S., but then in the western U.S., we are dealing with record-breaking temperatures in many instances.

We pulled readers, and 52% so far have said this winter is worse than they remember.

This winter is what many meteorologists have been calling a cool east, warm west pattern.

Essentially, we have two different winters going on.

Reporter Carl Churchill covers climate for the journal.

We have an abundance of snowfall out east, but an unusual lack of snow out west.

Many Americans on the East Coast have not experienced a winter quite like this in a long time.

We have seen record high housing heating costs.

Much of this extreme cold has headed very far south where homes and infrastructure are not built to handle extreme cold.

And especially what we saw in January this year was a large amount of what is called ice glaze accumulation.

And that can lead not only to widespread damage to vegetation, but also cause power outages.

On the bright side, many people on the East Coast are getting to experience an abundance of snow that they haven't seen in quite a long time, especially East Coast ski resorts.