Which winter month do you prefer to be the coldest?

January slightly colder than December and would like to have February progressively getting warmer toward March.

In the southern hemisphere:
July < June < August, with minimum average temperatures in early July. My home climate is pretty good in this regard, without much winter seasonal lag.

I'm fine with either December or January being coldest, I don't have strong feelings. What does matter is that February should be the warmest winter month by a significant margin. February should be the start of spring conditions. Cold is especially depressing when it occurs in February (or later)

Ok Thanks

January should be coldest, then December, then February. The coldest month should be one of those three. I want average temps to be lowest in the first half of January.

I would also be OK with Dec 1 - Mar 1 having completely flat, steady average temps. When I've made fictional climates day-by-day sometimes the 3 winter months end up with the same average. No real world climate will be steady cold and snowy for 3 months then warm up drastically in march though.

I want to have the worst of the cold and snow around Christmas and January, and let winter slowly ease its grip. I choose December.

Surprisingly my next choice is February. A slightly higher sun angle makes a minor difference feeling slightly warmer despite the same temperature reading in January or December. Also the cold would be more likely accompanied by sunshine than clouds or lake effect snow.

I prefer the spring to be longer than the fall since I similarly agree spring makes me happier in terms of weather. But I would say on much of the US west coast DJF are quite similar so January still feels like the "middle" of winter and sometimes you can have February be the coldest month.

Anyways I voted January (with December and February about the same) as I still want fall to be a solid season and not such an abrupt transition like it is here, but to be a bit shorter than spring.