He is. A dear friend, and a reminder of when things were... simpler, I suppose you could say.

[Even though he was the snowman she and her sister built that fateful night, Elsa never once considers him to be a bad reminder of that night. Really, he was one of the few things that still linked them together....]

And yes! It could be a bright, cloudless day right in the middle of the hottest summer weather, and the cloud still won't disappear.