In the strat any outcome very roughly like the one modelled looks like a successful forecast, while down here at the surface you need way more precision to get the weather to verify.
Basically a few hundred miles, a few degrees celsius and a few days either way in the strat makes no immediate difference to us. If it results in differing weather at the surface, we just say the strat forecast was correct, but the pieces didn't fall into place for us.
So I suppose strat forecasts are useful as a rough check on whether the effects modelled at the surface from the same data and the same equations are plausible or not.
2 miles west of Taunton, 32 m asl, where "milder air moving in from the west" becomes SNOWMAGEDDON.
Well, two or three times a decade it does, anyway.