It doesn't seem like we experience those real brutal winters anymore.
Trends can be misleading.
Since quality data only goes back 50 years at best, standard deviations and extreme records based on that data can be gross underestimations, and trends can overestimate the true climate state. This has caused the false assumption that these locations have permanent warming trends, perhaps also enhanced by the Urban Heat Island Effect, when in actuality it is often coincidental natural climate variability. It is very dangerous to draw conclusions based on the most recent 5 or 10 years worth of historical data. Although urbanization and micro-climate changes may cause a particular location to be somewhat milder in the decades to come on average, each upcoming year should be examined on a case by case basis. Due to population growth and urbanization, many metropolitan locations have become anomalously warm over the last 10 - 20 years.