And I would venture to say that it's because of the historic cold pressing that it is south. There are a few of our major snowstorms that were proceeded by historic cold, but 90%+ were not as overwhelming as this air mass.
If you run this 500mb vort prog in motion you can see around the Great Lakes the trough pushing a ridge overtop that's shoving our system SE. I think this is fairly representative of all the models.
https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/?model=namconus®ion=us&pkg=z500_vort&runtime=2026012812&fh=1
Appears to be a kicker coming down near the Dakotas and the Gfs has it further north into Canada, the Gem further south, and the Ukie the furthest south. It's killing the ridge orientation.