This study revisits the influence of the quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) on the Northern Hemisphere surface climate during the boreal winter by using the QBO index based on the empirical orthogonal function (EOF) of stratospheric equatorial winds. When the QBO is defined with eight phases, the tropospheric anomalies significantly project onto the negative Arctic Oscillation (AO) in phase 1 and onto the positive AO in phases 5 and 6. The underlying mechanism can be partially explained by the Holton–Tan relationship and the associated planetary wave–mean flow interactions. Compared with the known QBO indices defined with the single-level winds, the EOF-based index better captures the AO-like response to the QBO. This may be because the vertical structure, particularly the depth of the QBO’s stratospheric easterly or westerly, is essential for the QBO’s extratropical influence, which is better described by the EOF-based metric. The results remain robust in phases 1 and 5 and become more significant in phase 6 when the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) effects are linearly removed. This result suggests that the two-dimensional QBO index is more useful than the one-dimensional index for monitoring and predicting QBO-related tropospheric circulation changes.

Despite significant advances in subseasonal-to-decadal prediction, predicting the East Asian surface climate one season ahead remains a formidable challenge. This study proposes a hybrid dynamical–statistical model to improve East Asia’s springtime surface air temperature (SAT) prediction by incorporating the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation (QBO) forecasted by decadal climate prediction systems. The QBO, a dominant interannual variability in the tropical stratosphere, shows a significant negative correlation with the East Asian SAT in March. During the westerly QBO phase, the Asia–Pacific jet shifts equatorward and induces a large-scale cyclonic circulation anomaly over the North Pacific. This leads to a cold SAT anomaly in East Asia, especially in western and central China. The decadal climate prediction systems reliably predict the QBO up to 18 months in advance but have poor prediction skills for the East Asian SAT, even at a few months’ lead time. The hybrid dynamical–statistical model, which combines the QBO forecast from decadal climate prediction models and the QBO–East Asian SAT relationship in the observations, significantly improves the East Asian SAT prediction at a 5-month lead time. This approach suggests that improving the multi-year QBO prediction may enable the East Asian SAT prediction even one year in advance.