I am actually trying to incorporate more of matching weather patterns into my analog methods, as I have learned a great deal from you the past few years. It's good to be eclectic in methodology because this is an imperfect science and every method has a weakness. This is why I would never advise placing TOO much weight on synoptic timescale matching in analogs, or anything else for that matter. There are going to be good analogs that are not entirely in sync with the current weather....just too much chaos to be that precise. That said, I would be positively stunned if this December were not colder in the east than December 2001. Doesn't mean that season does not have value as analog.
I did not do forecasting back then, but I do remember that the 2001-2002 season was a real curve ball bc the consensus was very cold and snowy in the east.