I know you already know this, but even though the quote...wait for it...one of our favorite words here..."VERBATIM" is false, we (west of Raleigh) did see how an overly COLD *pattern* can indeed squash (literally and metaphorically) the hopes and dreams of any snow in (most of) the southeast. No one outside of the beaches/far eastern areas had a chance with the PV and those insane HPs destroying any chance of a widespread winter storm.
So even though taken literally the quote is wrong, it's not THAT wrong. Those folks were indeed in a similar type of pattern where it was super cold and they didn't see snow in those particular periods.
Since there are no storms to analyze, we may as well analyze old wise tales, etc.