It was the decade of "-EPOoooooo no", as @CoastalWxsays. The 80's was a decade heavily predisposed to +NAO/-EPO...which made for a high volume of messy snow to rain events in SNE, but NNE cleans up in that regime. I remember we would have 3" of crust on the ground where I grew up in Wilmington/Woburn area, only to get up to our camp in Heniker, NH and just be awe-struck when they had like a 3' pack.