People are used to the weather getting cold and lakes freezing, but do you know what it is doing to the ground around and under your buildings?  When ground water freezes, it does what all water does, it expands.  This expansion pushes the soil and rocks in the direction of least resistance, which is typically up.  We commonly call this ground movement “heaving”.  The problem is not really the fact that the ground moves, the problem is that it moves at different rates.  If a building is at the bottom of an incline and the water is not draining well, the excess water on that side will cause that side of the building to move more than the other sides.  Movement differences are also caused by snow being removed to access the building but leaving the snow on the other sides which insulates the ground.  This differential movement leads to cracking of the brittle concrete.