If there were any people alive from the 1800's, they would laugh at us, seriously, you guys call this a cold spell? Yes, it's a big contrast to the weather we've all been seeing lately but this is nothing compared to what they got hundreds of years ago. I like to watch the local news and see the almanac for NYC and it's sad to see that today's cold spell can't even match the ones hundreds of years ago. The daily record low for the day in NYC is -4°F set in I believe 1876. Out of all the cold spells we've been getting over the past 20 years, not one has even came close. 2 things I blame it on is GW and the urban heat island effect. It's sad to see that this happening and that the govt. is taking no action to slow GW, they were supposed to put wind turbines some 10 miles off the ocean here for electricity production, but it was turned down, because we got the ignorance of the people who said "oh well it blocks our view", HELLO, these things are 10 miles away, you can't even see out that far. I thought it would be a great idea, since we get a lot of wind storms and they're well off in the ocean. I'm sorry to rant and post so much random stuff but this is what's on my mind. Crazy... 
Besides the view thing, those windmills are only good up to a certain point, and I can say this as a fact visiting a wind farm near Mayville, ND. Those windmills can't handle very high winds, and they're designed to shut down after the wind hits a certain speed. Generally, that speed stands at around 26 mph (I think that's the number I was told) or so for your standard windmill model.
"Cold spell" is also a relative term, and it's usually not used to compare a time period as far back as the 1800s. For this 365-day period, this is definitely a cold spell for the South. Granted, we're not as cold as back then, but we can still experience some pretty brutal lows nonetheless.
