I was born near the Rzhev area myself actually and there was no phenomenon like this at all. We had snow storms over several hours, huge snow fall which obscured vision, which sometimes left huge amounts of snow but it was not like there were huge temperature jumps within hours, which could make you freeze in proper clothes when you were caught by it in the forest or similar.
Maybe this is a North american thing, but there was certainly nothing like this in Western Russia I can confirm from my personal experience of 10 years living there.
Thing with this is,the cold in this game is modeled after the historically,stupidly,insanely, cold winter of 1941. Thats why its so drastic.
I think cold tech should stay on maps like Rzhev,Moscow,etc,to fit the theme of the map/game.
But maps like lierneux, lanzerath,shouldnt have this insane cold at all,and if they do,just make it debuff style" with no deaths,just reduced combat effectiveness.