Yuck, terrible timing. I'd rather have this come through in the afternoon then possibly have to wake the kids up and take them to the basement. (My house is surrounded by large, very old, oak trees).
The modeling on this event was pretty good for the 12z-18z phase, but most models missed the dry slot and also over did the QPF bigtime. Overall if you had taken a blend of the snowfall amounts from the euro/nam/gfs you would’ve ended up with a good forecast.
It can happen, today wasn't really a great setup though for it IMO. Temps in the mid 20's or lower, light precip, and low sun angle is the winning recipe.