I know this is an electronic/lighting question and there's a forum for that there's more traffic here so I'll ask it here.

The last couple of mornings it's been like -14, -17*C. The battery life on my rechargeable lights--all of them, as well as my camera, have been shortened considerably. The funny thing is once I got into work and they've had time to warm up they continued to work, and even the low-charge warning signals stopped flashing. The camera--same thing.

So what gives? Is this normal and is just accepted? What can be done to mitigate, if anything?