The other thing about early season snows is they typically mean that it's colder up north too. So there is snow cover to our north, the lakes freeze earlier, etc and cold airmasses are much less modified when they get down here, resulting in colder air when the storms come and more snow for us. This is probably why in some winters, like 1993-94 the models underestimated the amount of cold available and the storms always trended snowier and colder. 1995-96 was like this too, outside of the three week thaw in January after the big blizzard.