" Rand noticed trees split open as if struck by lightning. “The cold,” Lan answered when he asked. “Sometimes the winter is so cold here the sap freezes, and trees burst. There are nights when you can hear them cracking like fireworks, and the air is so sharp you think that might shatter, too. There are more than usual, this winter past.” Rand shook his head. Trees bursting? And that was during an ordinary winter. What must this winter have been like? Surely like nothing he could imagine. "

― Robert Jordan , The Eye of the World (The Wheel of Time, #1)