Jay Banks.........
In response to the cold period for acorns in general..........
When I took Plant Propagation at college, I tried my hand at English Oak and Ohio Buckeyes, both of which are in a hard seed coat.
The Ohio Buckeyes seemed to break dormancy much quicker and with a higher degree of success than the acorns. All that I had to do is place the seeds in ground, carry out a routine watering schedule, and let nature take its course. But the English Oak would not break dormancy through simple planting............they required the 2 to 4 week cold spell. And if this was implemented, the success rate was almost perfect.
In the northern zones, where the annual arrival of snow is a sure thing, I believe that the cold spell is natures way of ensuring that the embryonic shoot won't break through the soil surface just to be killed by frost. The acorns of the local Bur Oaks typically fall in the fall and are thrown around by the neighborhood lawn-mowers. If they were to begin growing immediately after coming in contact with the ground, the probability for future generations would be slim.
However, I still admit that my knowledge on the southern oaks germination requirements is reletively low, due to inexposure and by only having a few members of the Quercus genus available for my observations (Bur, English, and the odd Mongolian) ......but through discussions such as this one, I building my knowledge base.......