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.
Yes. There was a dip in the jetstream that hit us. Not much snow, but very cold!