Well, here in Northern Ohio, the last two Winters were so cold that I lost 80% of my bushes/shrubs. My whole front hedge was killed.
Last year in Northern NJ, there was 1 plowable snow. I live at 1500 feet and we usually are colder and get more snow than the rest of the state. They plowed a few times, just because they get paid for it, but it was unnecessary. It was cooler for longer, but it was only really cold for a few days.
Contrast that with the prior winter, where we had over a dozen plowable storms, and weeks where the nightly lows were in the single or negative digits and the highs never went over 20.
Winter 15/16 was mild for this region. Funny thing is, I grew up in northern Ohio and the weather there and here where I live, generally tracks about the same. I think what happened was that the entire winter here, storms were lifting north after coming out of Ohio and hitting northern NY instead of coming straight across PA to NJ.