Absence of Ticks?

I can't say that I miss them, but I find it quite surprising that I haven't encountered any ticks yet this year. Typically, I will start to notice them as soon as temperatures warm sufficiently to bring out other arthropods; this year, we reached that point about six weeks ago. The Georgia piedmont experienced an unusually harsh winter with three snowfall events. I wonder whether that has anything to do with it, as I can't think of any other factors that may have changed. I've been going into some rather brushy areas with a large deer population (and no repellent.) I haven't seen any velvet mites either, although spiders are fairly abundant.