Hmm: Is snow cover reflecting heat in Siberia really the root cause of cold winters in North America?

Siberia snow tied to colder winters here | The Augusta Chronicle

Snow cover on the Tibetan plateau and adjacent parts of China also showed a strong relationship to winter cold in North America, said Mote, director of UGA's Climatology Research Laboratory.

Mote and Kutney found out that lots of snowy October and November days in Eurasia is a good predictor of cold winters in North America.

They didn't measure how deep snow was, but how long snow covered the ground during the fall.

When snow is on the ground, it reflects more of the sun's heat, preventing it from warming the land beneath.

"If it's 2 feet (as opposed to 1) it's not going to reflect any more. We were actually looking at the duration of snow cover," Mote said.
...
The extent of snow cover on the other side of the world showed the strongest influence on winter temperatures in the interior of the North American continent -- the Canadian prairie provinces and the Upper Midwest in the U.S.