Tick tock. Tick tock.

I think he has since changed it

As did I. I predict that Winter 2013/14 will be mild and wet with substantial flooding on the Somerset Levels and in the Thames Valley.

I predict January and February will be severely cold and snowy everywhere.
I will change it in due course to fit the conditions, which may be the total opposite of the above.

See, this LRF game is a doddle

Verdict?

At least it gave us something to talk about in the "build up"

Bin it.

Very good result for E and NE USA but didn't work out for NW Europe at all well

Little correlation with what happened, unfortunately:

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/ao_index_ensm.shtml

One swallow doesn't a summer make, but the first real test of the OPI hasn't shown it in a good light...

It certainly hasnt been a mild winter, lots of snow for some places, and I would argue a large portion of the UK has seen snow falling, with another large amount seeing it settle.

This to me in my eyes despite being fairly benign for MBY, has been a more wintry than average winter (but only slightly) I think the OPI has probably delivered a signal.. but not a concrete answer. I think people are unfairly expecting snow on the ground for weeks on end.. that kind of scenario is a 1 in 20 yr event probably. This isnt reflective of the typical UK Winter.

The winter of 2014/15 should be considered a classic - similar to how the summer of 2014 was seen.

I think the OPI should be considered as a good indicator in the winter forecasts in future.

 Very good summary IMO. 

A different angle this, but how often does the AO climb all the way up to +6 as shown for a week's time...? Seems pretty extreme 

The mean AO index figure for winter 2014/15 was +0.85. This is one of the highest figures in the historic series going back to 1950. So the OPI was a very poor predictor of the AO index this year.

Highest DJF AO index mean figures

1988/89  2.69 
1992/93  1.77
1989/90  1.25
1999/00  1.13
1991/92  1.09
1972/73  1.09
2006/07  1.00
1975/76  0.99
2007/08  0.86
2014/15  0.85

So winter 2014/15 saw the 10th highest AO index in the last 65 years

The AO index exceeded +5 yesterday (7 March). http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/ao_index.html

Prior to yesterday the AO index had only exceeded +5 on 14 days since 1950. So this is indeed very unusual. The AO index has never reached 6 so it will be interesting to see what happens over the next few days. All previous instances of a >+5 index have been in Dec, Jan or Feb.

Highest daily AO figures on record