His call was for a mild and mostly snowless December. That was on point. His call was for, as you mentioned was a 3 week bout of cold and snow from late December into the first 2 weeks of January. That came later than forecast by about 2 weeks and fell entirely in January. He also said on 11/1 that the cold would likely be bitterly cold. That verified. February is TBD but his original call was dry and mild.
He definitely had some details off but on the whole his call seems okay to me. I don't recall, I could be wrong, but I don't remember anyone calling for a spell of bitterly cold weather in January except for Elliott.
Not trying to defend him necessarily but those are the facts. He never tries to save anything. He always owns his mistakes.