Will winter damage be noticeable right away or when dormancy breaks?  My tree and the buds look great despite the very cold temps we've had for the last few days! 

Here are some pictures taken over the last few days.

If you start to see some split wood or darker, maybe a bit shrunken or shriveled, that has turned out to be winter damage for me, but I always wait for things to grow, but 9 out of 10 times it is killed with these symptoms.

killed as in totally dead, or just dead to the point where the shriveled ends?

(Slingha) The ends are totally dead the shriveled up parts thats it not the whole tree...PS dont trim it off until the growing season you will just cause more winter damage if you do.

Jo-Ann your tree looks fine dont worry about it. It doesnt look like any damage yet to the tree.

I didn't think so :) :) :)

I am totally surprised since the temp didn't go above 40 for 3 days and at night it was in the 20's and teens!  So far I am breathing a sigh of relief  ;)

I didn't winter protect my trees until 3 days ago here and the buds still look fine, that is with -5 and -7 degrees Celsius, it's usually later in winter that damage may occur for me, especially on the more tender shoots or closer to the top.

It is a bit disheartening. I am about 180 miles south of Dallas and have substantial cold damage on my trees going back to December 11-13. We had three nights in the 20's while the trees were still green. So far the winds were calm on the cold nights. I know of trees 30 miles south of me that are still in full leaf and green Only MBVS was close to dormant, and it does not appear to have any damage yet. Verdal Longue and VdB / Stella (I still am not sure which it is) have the next least damage. LSU Purple, Atreano and Genoa have taken it in the shorts. All have been covered with 55 gallon barrels (metal) or 5 gallon buckets (plastic) on nights below 34F.

I have two Sanford trees growing next to each other. I covered one and left the other uncovered. As of 12.24, they both had about the same level of cold damage.

That's a good strong looking tree there JoAnn!
 congrat's!
What variety is it?