And the next question is: How is this likely to affect our winter this
year? The forecast given on the web page is only for the US. Does
greater Siberian snow cover mean greater chance of snow or cool conditions
for us?

The UCL seasonal forecasts are based on Siberian snow cover-
http://forecast.mssl.ucl.ac.uk/for_uketrw.html

BTW this not new recent published scientific papers go back a few years,and I wldn't be surprised if
there was much earlier work that's been forgotten,

--
regards,
david
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