I think it is because our winters are now normally warmer. When I was a kid in the St. Louis area we had ice on the ponds for a month or 2. Now we are lucky if we have ice for a week or two.
Here in the northeast we just had a brutally cold winter the like of which we haven’t seen in decades. We had snowfalls that weren’t abnormal, but because temps were so low snow just wouldn’t melt. When people finally wood get a chance to clear it, they would be chopping through frozen layers with varying hues of gray from grime.
I was hiking earlier today (for the first time in a while), and didn’t find the ticks that customarily would grab on clothing and socks.
CLA, in my humble opinion, a cold winter may or may not be the ticket.
This past winter was very cold and long here. My kids played ice hockey on our little farm pond for quite awhile this year which is rare. You usually get a few days here and there of hockey but this winter we were on the pond al the time.
And guess what. Start of May the ticks were off the charts. Both my dogs got ehrlichiosis at the end of May.
I do agree the Midwest had harsher winters years ago. In the late 70s/early 80s in the burbs of Chicago it was like living in Manitoba during winter. That changed in the late 80s through 2007 when I moved.