It's not a cutter, it's a slider. It is different then your normal cutter. Most cutters you get zero snow. You have a area of low pressure running into a cold high, the front end thump could be substantial.
These are some good indices for a common storm track to bring us snow over the next few weeks
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/forecasts/reforecast2/teleconn/forecast.html
Buffalo is -14.2" of snow for the date and +11.6 for temps today likely adds 1 or 2 degrees to that. Hard to believe Buffalo has had more snow this year than last year to date. 33.5" vs 32.4". But last year we had a large storm starting in a few days and the 2nd half of January was pretty solid.
There's that longwave trough I've been talking about in the long range.
The significant weekend storm could very likely be a pattern
changing system...as long range guidance and forecasts from the
Climate Prediction Center suggest that a deep longwave trough
will become dominant over the eastern half of the continent as
we push through the second half of the month. This would favor
below normal temperatures.
So let's see what's going to happen. The first storm goes to far north and we get warm and rain, the second storm just misses us to the NW and we get rain and warm. Then we get really cold air and a really dry airmass. Sounds about status quo for this winter.
This system is different, that's why. We are not seeing a system rapidly intensify and cut from Ohio up through our forum. It's sliding across from Michigan into NYS. Much more likely to stay all snow this way.
To be fair the last month has averaged +10 departures around here in the "heart" of winter. That is almost as rare as Feb 2015. The positive departure anomalies have greatly increased in frequency. It's called global warming. It was 67 degrees the other day here with sunshine, once I get that first taste of spring it's tough to go back to the cold.