Wow! What a storm!

Ensemble mean is probably better to test against. The OPs fluctuate wildly, but the ensemble mean pretty much holds a constant look. Here.. lot's of warm and cool colors. Hudson bay cool: I'd say more likely to verify Northern Europe warm: That region sometimes doesn't verify as good Pacific tough NW of Hawaii vs ridge right off the coast, it may move around a few hundred miles, but I say generally the look will probably verify even though it's not strong.

One year ago at this very moment it was WINDY

This is a good point. People wildly overstate the inaccuracy of long range models because everyone is so focused specific outcomes in their own backyard. Long range outputs are still pretty useless for local forecasts, sure, but like you say, the general 500mb theme will usually not be unrecognizable from the model outputs 15 days beforehand. A ridge axis shifting 500 miles here or there will result in enormous differences for any given point in a local area, but on the scale of the global climate at large, it's not that big of a shift. Let's test this, I'll set a reminder to come back to this post in 15 days. I bet you the actual 500mb pattern will still be vaguely recognizable from these maps. They already look pretty similar on a global scale. Bet you when we check this in 15 days, there will be some kind of negative anomaly over NE North America and the SW US, and some kind of blocking over the North Pacific, Alaska, and/or far eastern Russia.

^ Really trended toward a +NAO in the medium range. I would be curious to see if there is still strong 10mb warming forecasted, with now a moderate +NAO happening.