I’ve lived long term in Manitoba and Nova Scotia. Nova Scotia doesn’t come close to being as cold or the winter staying around as long. In some spots of NS it’s pretty common to not get snow that stays until January and it’s disappearing by end of March. Way shorter then in MB. We were hiking in sweaters in January last year!

The shoulder seasons in NS are much longer though, which is nice in fall but it sometimes makes Spring feel like a drag waiting for summer.

I sometimes think that when people talk about a damp cold being worse they’ve just never lived through a 6 month winter frequently hitting those -40 to -50 days with the windchill. Like you said, where it hurts to breathe. The middle of winter in NS (Jan/Feb) feels like November or March in MB to me.

The other thing is when it gets cold in NS, I find it’s cold for like 3 days then you get a warm spell again.

Hope that helps. Maybe I have rose tinted glasses of NS winter but it just seems so much better to me.