LC
Evidence for a major cold snap in the second week of February has increased, and I would be surprised if somewhere east of the Rocky Mountains was not hit by a heavy snow/ice and possible blizzard in the 11-15 day period. And I think that there will be another such storm and cold spell before February is finished. But I am convinced that the spring season will have an early start to warmth, largely because:
1) Blocking signatures have never stabilized for any great length of time
2) The heat ridge over the Greater Antilles is building into the Sargasso Sea, which usually translates to a prominent Bermuda High
3) Dryness is enveloping the Southwest and High Plains back into Mexico (favors early formation of a Sonoran heat ridge)
4) The Madden-Julian Oscillation has been oriented toward the Southern Hemisphere, which almost always leads to widespread warmth and ridging over the lower 48 states
5) Arctic vortices and troughs have seldom linked with equatorial forcing
See also that while January was fairly cold through much of the USA, the temperatures were only briefly extreme and set up a tepid first two months of the DJF time frame. The lack of moisture west of the Mississippi Valley (outside of the Pacific Northwest) is an indicator for drought, which in turn points toward a rather warm spring with thunderstorm risks emerging over TX, OK, KS early before dryness overtakes the middle chamber of the nation.