Probably becuase people will hang their hat on anything that is percieved to be a pre-cursor to cold and snow...we have had SSTs, SSW, La Nina, Siberian Snow Index, OPI , Polar Vortex, NAO, AO , Solar Activity and the list goes on .Each year there seens to be something new that correlates to cold winters some how or some where even if the link is very tenious...lets face it it diesnt get too cold too often in this country and thats a fact and that wont ever change..unless there is a polar shift sometime soon.