Indeed. The ecm 32 dayer, which was considered very accurate with regard to the blocking events of the previous two years, was very misleading this year. I recall Matt Hugo referencing it in his tweets, because blocking to the northwest was depicted by it on several occasions.
Ian Brown rightly receives criticism for some of his posts on here, but in saying that he was right when he mentioned several weeks ago that the vortex split this winter might not be favourable for blocking over the UK and Ireland. He cautioned people not to get carried away at the time. So This winter has shown me it's best not to get carried away by t-240 stratosphere profile charts from now on. Also that a split vortex does not guarantee blocking will occur in the right area for us to benefit from, even if some of the models suggest so in late FI.