Look at any time frame you want....euro was a whiff most of that modeling evolution, and even close in...it had the death band over extreme s NH....then I smoked exhaust while Brian's chickens did naked snow angels in 34"....so don't tell me the shit was too amped.
RGEM, UK and GFS all jacked e MA w big totals.....again, I'm not arguing it was ever likely. But e MA does not need deep antecedent cold in mid winter to jack. Just the mid level banding, like anywhere else.
I'm sure @ORH_wxman can hep me here....name the January events that dropped widespread 20"+ over a relatively large area without a true arctic airmass....probably a fairly short list.
Seen folks talking about truly upper echelon potential......you need arctic air around to achieve that, at least in January, anyway....I'm not referring to just temps and I don't necessarily mean P-Type issues. Its tough to pull off a true upper tier systems in mid January without arctic air.
You have more margin for error at peak climo with respect to temps and reasonably large systems....but good luck pulling widespread 20"+ in mid January without arctic air. I'm not complaining about it...just stating an opinion.