You live in Chicago and have a commute that takes you from car to building in seconds? You are very lucky. I live here without having a car, and I know a lot of people who don’t have cars. I know even more people that have trouble finding parking in weather like this, often because of that saving space with a folding chair crap. We need to know what the weather feels like. I don’t care what the thermometer readout says, I need to know how many pairs of socks and long underwear to wear. I don’t even work outside, I just take the bus and train every day like thousands of people here do.
I agree that a lot of meteorologists and news casters get too much of a kick out of reporting crazy low temps (or crazy high temps), for bragging rights or just the novelty, but I do appreciate getting an approximation about how it will feel when I wait for the bus.
Not this prairie boy. I remember when weathercasts said things like, “it’s -23 with a windchill factor of 2300 which means exposed flesh will freeze before you leave the house.” I always wanted them to give the effective temp because 2300 means nothing to me.
I prefer the effective temperature method since it is meaningful to me.
Thank you, youank you. Something I’ve bitched about for years. The TV weather folks can’t resist reporting the lowest possible numbers they can find and they no longer care what the numbers even mean.
It varies from state to state, but state-funded schools get paid based on their daily attendance. The more students actually attending (either literally day to day or over weekly or monthly averages), the higher the funding.
Closing for a day means a 0% attendance for that day.
Someone on facebook was lamenting that with windchill, it will be “-50 degrees outside” when in actuality it’s actually “50 degrees below freezing” or - 28F. It’s all very stupid.
Yeah, but that’s true for plain old air temperature too - nobody goes out naked when it’s 20 degrees outside and no wind either, but it’s still 20 degrees out and that will feel like something through your clothes. So wind chill is a crude but accurate reflection of what it feels like.
Seems to me, at least on NPR here in Chicago, they have been making a point of stating the actual air temp before mentioning wind chill, so good on them. When the actual temp is -15F like is was yesterday that’s really all I need to know. Single digits or 0F I’ve been through plenty of times, but damn, this negative teens BS is nasty.
I suppose it could be worse though. While it is cold, at least it’s a dry cold.
I heard someone on the radio saying that it was going to go “below zero” (a week ago) when it was going to go below freezing (32 degrees). I don’t think he was converting to celcius, just a dolt.
I worked in Chicago for nearly a quarter century and I had both sorts of commutes: the sort that requires you to stand on the sidewalk waiting for a bus and/or on a platform waiting for a train and on a good day took an hour and in bad weather multiple hours, and the sort of commute where I walk 20 feet from my front door to my car, my car 20 feet to an enclosed train station, then get off at an underground station that opens directly into my office building and thus never actually have to go outside once I got to the Loop.
Yes, you dress very differently for those two commutes.
On the other hand, I’ve always been the sort to be crazy prepared. I’d always have extra gloves/hat/clothing in my bag. If there’s one certain thing about this sort of weather, stuff breaks down and you are just not going to arrive at your destination on time.
Yes, but you make that up when you tack a day on to the end.
In Missouri for full participation credit you need attendance at 90/90.
That means; at the end of the year, 90% of your students must be in school 90% of the time to get 10/10 points on the state assessment.
If you have school on a day where 20% of your students don’t show, it lowers your overall average and makes it more difficult to achieve your attendance standard.
On a day to day basis, we get reimbursed by the state for every student in school for that day based upon a funding formula. 80% attendance for a day means 80% of the funding we’d be entitled to, if we had 100% attendance. If we cancel today and make it up in May we can potentially earn (or save) more money for the district.
So student safety is obviously our primary concern, but we can’t ignore the financial ramifications of our decisions either.
That’s fucked up and I feel for the school admins who have to deal with this system. Still, those little bastards should have had their asses in school today. And the admins should have been calling the parents who either didn’t send their kid to school or who didn’t ensure they were appropriately dressed. One day with 25% lower attendance doesn’t sound that critical for a school at the end of the year. The fact that we’re teaching kids and parents that colder than normal temperatures are sufficient grounds to stay home is absolutely ridiculous. How do you raise the standards of education (in its various forms) when you keep lowering expectations?
I can get behind this pitting. My father is an idiot at the best of times, but today he was going on about how cold it was in America, getting the facts wrong in three different ways in one sentence.
The way people are going on about the temp here in Chicago makes it seem like the sun is dying or something. It’s ridiculous. Yeah, it’s cold. That’s it.
I also am fed up with these “feels like” reports. It goes down to -30 or lower where I grew up. IMO, an actual temp of -15 with a “feels like” of -35 isn’t anywhere near what -35 actually feels like. An actual air temp of -35 almost hurts the lungs - it’s a different animal entirely.
I understand what you are saying, but we are going to have to disagree. I don’t think wind can be stated as a temperature in a meaningful way. People then start stating the windchill as the actual temperature and that is annoying.
I can’t get behind this Pitting - the wind chill “feels like” temperature is more important to me than the air temperature because I’m a recreational walker - I need to know how fast the wind chill is going to suck the heat out of me (and how many layers to put on).
As this thread is demonstrating, it is critical for weather forecasters to make both measurements available, because some people need to know one, and other people need to know the other one. We always get both here - if they stopped giving wind chill, I’d be screwed. Well, I guess not - I’d just need to know the wind speed and direction as well as the temperature then before I could set out on a walk - just giving me a wind chill makes it so much easier for me to dress for walking in winter.
As for not having emergency supplies in your car, that’s dumb if you live anyplace that does get deathly cold. I see it here, too - people counting on a car never breaking down (or never getting into a collision), so they dress for inside when it’s -25ºC outside. Dumb.
Or if it makes sense to dress like that every day keep a kit in your car. Mine has a few pair of wool socks in various sizes, mittens, hats scarves, a couple blankets and some protein and granola bars. I also carry a six pack of water (currently frozen of course) and a bag of sand. It used to be kitty litter but it’s hard to find non clumping litter and take it from me, clumping litter is NOT a big help in gaining traction.
