The first cold snap bothers us a great deal, but after two or three weeks of constant temperatures below freezing most of us are able go about our business. The same thing happens to wild animals. Heavy snows and cold temperatures drive many into hiding and out of the elements. Animals can't hole up for long. Burrowing animals dig in to get out of the weather.
Deer go to the heaviest cover they can find, usually a heavy cedar swamp.
Most make it through the winter. One spring, while trout-fishing a stream that ran through a small cedar swamp, I found the carcasses of nearly 100 deer that had starved to death after they had eaten every reachable cedar branch in the stand. Then again, the weather might turn around and warm up. There might be an early spring. Well, this column proved you can talk or write about the weather, but we mortals have no control over it.