Last year there was only about a week or two of actual frost that left the ground hard during the day. There were plenty of frost/thaw days. This also manifested as a relatively mild winter to not totally crash Germany et al.

Colder Winters are coming. From my research it seems that the mild winter is consistent with the high point in the 11-year sun cycle. The crest of that will pass shortly. On the down-cycle winters will rapidly get colder and longer. Whether this winter will be cold enough for a planned winteer offensive is up for debater, but it will be in January, probably after the Christmas celebrations. It it may start as early as after midnight, if the frost has established itself.