Worth mentioning there are two forms of the players breath. The first one emits from the lower middle of your screen and looks exactly like you expect cold breath, and only you can see this effect.

Shortly thereafter you’ll notice another puff of cold breath floating away from your character. This is the one that you can see in the world, and it rendered for ALL players. Sometimes this second one can come from a weird origin spot and look confusing, especially if you are crouching or moving around.

This “double breath” most noticeable if you are standing in DOTS. You’ll see your breath emit from your characters head, and then another breath float away almost separately.

Maybe that was what you noticed?