In my youth of living in WNY lake Erie would completely freeze over every year.
In the winter of 1976/77 it froze over in mid December. Eventually leading to lots of snow accumulation on the ice. When the winds picked up to 75 mph in mid January it led to the Blizzard of 77. Three feet of snow and high winds. No school for a week.
Things were nice and warm in BTR that winter.
The winter you mentioned brings back memories of the weather in Fargo, ND. I remember we had about 30 days of very cold weather: Highs -10 below F and Lows -30 below. As I recall the governors of ND and MN closed all government operations except emergency services. It finally warmed up to +10 and everything got going again.