In Alabama and most other southeastern states we’re just not set up to deal with snow and it’s not worth the money to buy snow plows when we get one heavy snow per decade if that. Even an inch can cancel schools.
But I’m curious as to what it takes to cancel schools in areas that have snow every year. Is it a certain number of inches, or is it related to visibility or temperature, or what exactly?
Thanks for any info.
In western Pennsylvania it is very arbitrary. If parents are upset that school wasn’t canceled during a bigish storm, then the next minor flurry leads to a closing. If the end of winter is approaching and few snow days have been used up, then they begin using them like mad.
Around here it’s usually more a problem with ice or with snow and severe cold. The school’s director of transportation gets out at 4:00 a.m. and drives around town. If it looks like the snow won’t be a problem by 6:00 a.m., school’s in session. If there’s a lot of ice building up, school’s canceled. Generally the depth of snow isn’t a big factor unless it’s coming down really hard and it looks like the plows won’t be able to clear it fast enough.
A side note – there are a LOT more snow days now than when my wife and I were in school in the 50s and 60s. Back then, unless there was a freakin’ blizzard, the best we could hope for was an excused tardy.
(insert obligatory “get off my lawn!”)
In the suburbs of Boston, it usually takes 6+ inches, with bad weather conditions (or at least the forecast of such) to cancel. A bit more snow but a sunny day and clear roads: school might be on. A bit less but ice all over the place: no school. As kayaker said, the officials often get it wrong so they overcompensate, leading to some crap decisions.
ETA: I only had one cold day ever, when it was in the single digits and windy.
Generally, each school district superintendent makes the call after consulting with the director of transportation.
As a general rule, I’d say over eight inches, but, as kayaker noted, it can vary widely.
When we are getting a ten-inch storm every week, the district begins to run out of snow days, (the number of days the legislature permits a district to skip school before they have to start adding days in June to meet some minimum number). It is amazing how much snow the kids and bus drivers can get through if it means that the district does not trip clauses in the contracts to pay more for a longer school year.
In addition, once we’ve had several heavy snows ina row, the road crews get better about clearing the roads as the snow falls, so that even a ten-inch cover might have no impact on the actual driving conditions.
If there is sleet or ice in the mix, the schools will shut down faster rather than risking having a bus or ten nose into a four foot deep ditch.
Paging Mr Bus Guy…
As usual, we have pretty much every profession and trade represented here at the Dope, and MBG is our resident caller of snow days when the weather’s not fit for school buses to be out and about.
Cool.
A bit of an aside: for those who didn’t grow up in a snow climate but moved to one, how easy or hard was it for you to learn to drive in snow/icy weather?
Dear Sampiro:
Here is a link (warning: PDF) to the guidelines used by the Labrador School Board. Yes, it can really drop to -55C there…
Here’s a link (warning: PDF) of the guidelines used in Wellington and Dufferin counties in Ontario. This one seems to be more about the ‘how’ than the ‘why’.
I’ll keep looking… Environment Canada ought to have something, but I haven’t found it yet.
Around here (Minneapolis, MN), you’re not likely to see a whole day unless you see two or more of the following;
a> minimum of about 6" on the ground with more forecast
b> extremely cold temperatures (which, around here, means -20 or lower)
c> high winds blowing the snow around.
6" of snow, still coming down, light wind and temperature of 0? Big deal. At most they’ll say “2 hour delay” for the buses.
So the chances are you’re still going to have school regardless of the weather. Your bus will just be late.
Here in Oklahoma, two inches is likely to get school canceled. One inch might.
Takes an outright blizzard to cancel schools here. Heavy snow and high winds, zero visibility, etc.
In Pittsburgh, where there are a lot more hills than in the Midwest, it doesn’t take much to get a 2-hr delay. Any amount of ice will set the schedule back. I think this has a lot to do with the fact that delays are free- they don’t need to be made up. You’ll get maybe 6 or 7 delays a year.
To cancel school, however, it takes a great deal. There’s maybe one stretch (a day or more, consecutively) of school canceled every two or three years. It seems like every day that it snows or it’s really cold out, at least 5 schools are canceling. But it takes maybe 6 inches with cold temps (10s and down) to get all schools to close. Then there’s the water main breaks from frozen water in old pipes. Those happen all the time and shut down schools for a day or two.
Winnipeg, where I grew up, was pretty much the same as the descriptions of Saskatoon and Minneapolis above. The city contracts out to construction firms for the winter to use their bulldozers and graders to plow snow all winter long. Unless it’s actively hazardous to be outdoors, they won’t cancel school. I seem to remember that I had precisely one snow day in the twelve years I was in grade school; the storm lasted most of a weekend and dumped about 40 cm of snow (drifting up to a metre or two due to the 70-80 kph winds). We got Monday off, and Tuesday was a statutory holiday anyhow.
ETA: I should also mention that ice storms are much rarer in Manitoba than in, say, New England. Generally it stays well below freezing all winter, and you don’t get liquid water that then freezes onto everything.
In the Akron OH area, it depends on the school system, whether city(where many kids walk to school, or more suburban/rural(where buses are much more the norm).
I’ve lived in the city of Akron for 35 years. The city schools close when it’s extremely coldd(below zero, or 0-10 with strong wind chill). They don’t want someone’s third grader freezing to death on the half mile walk. The suburbs/rural close because of deep snow/ice, not at all dependent on the temperature.
One rumoured standard that I never had confirmed growing up was that if temps hit -42C, the liquification point of propane, that school would be canceled (a lot of school buses ran on propane). It usually was at that point anyway, so it may or may not have had anything to do with it. but in terms of actual snow, it would have to be currently blizzarding and the roads not cleared.
It depends on the timing of the snow, too. If there’s 10" on the ground at midnight but no more snow falls, and the next day is not too cold, then the roads will be clear and kids can go to school. If it snows all night and the trucks can’t keep up with it well enough for busses to roll at 6AM, then there’s no school.
I’m in the suburbs (just north of samclem) and we don’t have as many walkers as in Akron but they will indeed close school because of temps, as all the kids are all waiting for busses.
When I was in high school we had a 3-day week with Monday and Friday as holidays, and the three days inbetween for scheduled testing. It snowed like the dickens all week and we were off for an ENTIRE week plus had our tests the next week. It was magical!
When I was in New Hampshire, school will very likely be closed if there is a foot or more of snow. Between 6 - 12 inches or so, depending on actual condition, there may either be 2-hour delay or cancellation. Probably nothing will happen with less than 6 inches, unless there are other mitigating factors, like ice or high wind.
In Northeast WI, schools close with either a) about 6"+ b) at least 1-2" of ice covering bridges or roadways (ice storms happen more than we’d like) c)temperatures of -30 (including windchill) d) a forecast of more.
Although last year we were running dangerously low on salt/sand for the roads, so they closed schools after only about 4" because the plows were running so slow… trying to ration… they just didn’t get the roads cleared in enough time to accommodate a 2 hour delay.
In rural/small town Iowa and Minnesota, it takes less then in the Twin Cities. In rural school districts, they have to consider how long/far the buses travel, and how long students might be standing outside waiting for the bus. So blowing snow/white out and a couple of inches might do it. Or probably -10 degree F.
In the Twin Cities, the schools are rarely closed because of temperature, but 6+ inches still on the roads, or heavy snow falling during morning pickup times will close or delay.
Around here, they put up a two hour delay, 5 min before the kids are suppose to be in school. Every community surrounding us had schools canceled for 50 miles before 10pm the night before. Guess when the storm was predicted to hit. Then they put out that school would be let out early.
When I drove a school bus, we, in the middle of an ice storm, no snow plows or salt trucks in sight, delivered all of the children to school. On time and in one piece. So they canceled school. School wasn’t even in session for 1 hour. The High School kids were really great. No screaming no crying they just held on as we went down the off ramp (steep downhill grade) sideways. I kid you not, I left the interstate at 10 mph to find it a complete sheet of ice. The brakes were worthless just tapping them locked the wheels. It was all I could do to keep that bus between the shoulders. On the way home for them, I broke regs and would not drive the interstate, I got written up for it. Shortly before noon I believe the interstate was closed.
Four other drivers were written up for altering the posted routes to avoid ice coated hills that day.
That is how the idiots in charge around here close school.
Iowa, if you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes, it’ll get worse!
Only accident I had in three years of driving a school bus, A large tree branch fell on my empty bus, while it was parked waiting for my students to come out. Had to wait for the boss to come see the damage before I could let them board.