Siberian snow and Philly winter

John Bolaris has an article at Philly.com about what could be another bad winter for Philadelphia:

How deep is the snow in northern Russia, on the other side of the world? It may seem like an odd question, but one of the factors that goes into a long-range winter outlook for Philadelphia's upcoming winter season is the amount of snow cover piling up this time of the year in Siberia (photo).
And as it just so happens, Siberia's snow cover is rapidly increasing. This is significant, because it's one of the signals that could lead to a potentially colder winter here.
Is it set in stone? Absolutely not. However, drawing comparisons to last year's snowfall totals, it's pretty close. And we all know what happened last winter: it was one of the snowiest on record.
Does this mean we need to hunker down for another long winter? I'm ot ready to say that. A few other key winter players are still being analyzed. I will have your long-range winter outlook coming out over the next couple of weeks. As always, it's agonizing and one of the biggest challenges in forecasting.
In the much shorter term, your weekend will see greatly improving conditions, as a decent amount of sunshine will return during the day on Friday, with Saturday mostly sunny, breezy, and milder, with a high of 67, and Sunday having sun and clouds, windy and cooler, with a high around 60.

Rico can only say 'ugh' in anticipation... (Though the weekend looks good.)