It's due to global warming, dontcha know.
Lake effect snow storms usually abate once the Great Lakes freeze over, which usually occurs late December. Because of the warm December and January, however, the lakes still have a lot open water to fuel the snow machine. Although the stupid will claim the lakes are still liquid because of global warming, I can assure them that this weather pattern has happened in the past (January 1978 comes to mind) and will happen again.