What preparedness items are available for bargain prices in winter, if any?

Snow tires?
Edit:
OK, usually you get the sales at the end of each season when they need the space to stock for the next season and are trying to dump left over inventory.
It means you usually see winter gear clearance sales about Jan or Feb here. Summer stuff usually gets remaindered in august just before school season or in Sept just before hunting season.
It also means stores that stock aisles for hunting season are trying to get them empty before they restock their Xmas stuff.

Keep an eye on rei-outlet.com, they were still dumping last year's fleece a few weeks ago. Usually there's also another dump once inventory gets transferred fully out of their stores / warehouses and they figure out how much they really have to move. Last year the rough deal was 2007 Polartec 200 or 300 for $19.93 about this time of year. And the newer 2008 stuff coming in sure looked identical to me.

Like scafool says, end of winter is a good time to stock up on thermal underwear and march-april seems to be a good time to get a cheap rain jacket.

Everything is on sale after Christmas.

And the worst of winter is usually to come for us.

The Cabela's Christmas catalogue arrived in the mail last week so they're pushing hard already. Because of rising unemployment without economic recovery in sight (hopefully we're in the bottom of it now but that remains to be seen), this entire Christmas season might be a big sale.

I expect we're going to see significant inflation in the next few years. For now the CPI is low but don't count on that continuing forever.

So if shopping for quality durables, like knives or axes, now's likely as good a time as any to buy.

The National Retail Federation said Tuesday that it expects U.S. retail sales to fall to 2005 levels in the coming holiday season, though the expected decline of 1% isn't as deep as the 3.4% plunge of the 2008 holiday season.

Bathing suits drop for winter
End of winter I get wool socks on sale.