Do you prepare for record cold temps, despite some recent years of warmer than average weather?

[BillyBob58]

The longer the trip (and therefore the more unpredictable the weather extremes), the more I will prepare for temps lower than predicted. For a weekend trip, I generally prepare for what the weather is predicted to be without concern that something unpredicted and freaky might hit the area I'm in.

I'm about the same. But, if I was going on a 30 day long trip to a place where I could not get out quickly and easily, down here in MS( that will never happen, and there really is no such place anywhere near here), I still can't imagine me preparing for minus 20F, which is what I would have to do to cover anything that has happened in the last 60 years. But who knows, if the weather was at risk for being really crappy, maybe I would prepare for zero. Or at least prepare to reasonably get by at zero, and to be plenty warm and snug at 10-20F. In my 14 years of hanging, the most severe I have managed to hang in down here is 6F on ONE night, plus a few more 10F nights plus some wind chill. I was plenty warm on all of them, with a variety of insulation types.

OTOH, on an HF group back pack hang in Feb 2009 down here, I woke up about 0200 to pee, then realizing I was just a bit chilled all over. It only got to a low of 27F, and I had a highly rated 0ºF UQ snugged up under me, which had previously kept me toasty at 10F. But we had hiked through cold, windy rain storms to get there, and then it was blowing rain turning to blowing snow that night. Fortunately, I had a thick removable sleeping bag hood in my pack, and once I put that over the fleece cap and jacket hood I was already using, I ended up with another toasty night.

[BillyBob58]

BTW, if you are disgusted with the warm winter so far this year in the east, maybe take a road trip to Mt. Baker, WA. Where they have had, this January, 283", or over 23 FEET of snow, and an average of 9.8 inches of snowfall each day. Now, counting the snow melt that has occurred all year, that leaves them with, as of today, a mere 140″ on the ground(snow depth) down low and 176" higher up. And that is only about 1/2 way up the mountain, where the ski lifts end. Much ore higher up, probably. With apparently a whole lot more on the way, as a couple of "atmospheric rivers" from Japan are headed their way. They will probably get many additional feet of snow out of those. That should make for a reasonably challenging winter trip to prepare for. However, not so much in the way of extreme cold temps there. But, enormous wet, and enormous amounts of snow. A different kind of challenge to prepare for.