Set on a farmstead on an unspecified Canadian prairie, "The Painted Door" takes place amid a severe blizzard.
The Canadian Meteorological Service classes extreme winter storms as blizzards when the temperature is below ten Fahrenheit (minus twelve Celsius), winds move at more than twenty-five miles per hour, visibility is reduced to less than half a mile, and the storm lasts over six hours. Blizzards of this magnitude can bury the flat prairie landscape, making roads impassable.
Historically, such storms have resulted in human casualties either from people getting lost in the blinding wind and open landscape or from freezing to death when their stove fires blow out during the night. Ranchers and farmers also tend to lose livestock if animals do not have adequate warmth and shelter from the freezing winds. In the winter of 1906–1907, half of the cattle in the province of Alberta died during a four-week cold snap. Blizzards also put wildlife at risk, although many animals indigenous to the prairie landscape have adapted to hibernate or burrow underground during the harsh winters.
The popular 1970s television show Little House on the Prairie dedicated an episode to the phenomenon of the prairie blizzard. The 1976 episode depicts children being dismissed early from school on Christmas Eve only to find themselves caught out walking home through a deadly winter storm.
