what's a snow day?

[TurkishMonky]

What would you conider bad enough weather to get a snow day?

The reason i'm asking is my college still had classes with a severe heavy snowfall warning, about 50 ft vsibility and 4 inches of unplowed snow on main roads... one classmate said she saw 4 people drive nto ditches on her way to class. (Eventually the college got enough complaints that they finally ended school at noon..)

I know i'm in MI, but that seems a bit much to me...

[Doe Johnson]

What IS a snow day?! A day when it snows? Okay, so snow days at schools I've attended have all been few, I think I've had a total of 2. Somehow I always go to the school with the person in charge of snow days thinks that there must me some major injury before a day can be a snow day. I mean, EVERY school in the area is closed but ours! So I don't really have a clue what a snow day would be. I'd just go for when there is enough snow and ice to make visibility low and walking/driving dangerous - don't know to what degree.

[mechana2015]

In our district (Elementary, Jr, Sr High Schools) it took about 3-4 inches on the roads the night before and continuing accumulation, or heavily falling, accumulating snow at about 5-6 AM. Visiability never played into cancelled school. Colleges are notorious for being less willing to cancel school though, possibly due to the fact that in most cases, a lot of students live on campus (I guess).

We actually had an extra week built into our school year to absorb snow days and we cleared that almost every year. We actually had 10 or so snow days one year O.o.

[Stephen]

It varies. Up here, somtimes there can only be a few inchs of snow...but if the roads are iced they might close everything. Nor-Easters are what shuts everything down though. If the weather guys know it is one...they go ahead and close everything and brace for it.

[soul alive]

In Wyoming, I only recall having 2-4 snow days. And that was when it snowed over a foot within a couple hours and was continuing to snow and the roads were icing over. 4 inches was average and nothing to get excited about back home, XD.

It's interresting living in a college town in the mountains in Montana, people come here completely unprepared for driving in winter conditions, and that makes for wonderfully fun winter driving. I believe the policy at the college is that if there is over 3 feet and counting during one storm, you don't have to come to school.

I wish though, that they would set a temperature limit. Last week we had to wander around campus in 0 degree weather during the day. Now it's in the 30s-40s and people are wearing shorts and flip-flops. XD

[Nate]

Snow? What's that? o.o

Just kidding. Virginia people don't know how to deal with snow. At all. They see a snowflake fall, and everything gets shut down. Also for some inexplicable reason when it snows, the bread and milk aisles at grocery stores become bare. A friend of mine from New York didn't believe me until it started snowing one day and I took him to the grocery store. He said it was bizarre.

[Tenshi no Ai]

Snow? What's that? o.o

Just kidding. Virginia people don't know how to deal with snow. At all. They see a snowflake fall, and everything gets shut down. Also for some inexplicable reason when it snows, the bread and milk aisles at grocery stores become bare. A friend of mine from New York didn't believe me until it started snowing one day and I took him to the grocery store. He said it was bizarre.

Heh that's amusing... I know my mom does the same because if the snowfall's supposed to be bad enough... yeah it's not good to be stuck in a house with like nothing to eat^^
I know when it snows here it can REALLY snow, but we had a real sad snowfall this year :/ Biggest was... maybe just over 4 inches this week that still has spots that need to disappear... it was a school day though cause thanks to Mr. Rain it cleared all the streets and sidewalks (with also a little help from Mr. Plow^^)
Apparently in the 70's in this town, the snwo actually reached the ROOF on houses!!! ....clear to say that school, and work, and well, everything was cancelled for those days :/ How fun would that be though if you were a little kid!

[Puritan]

I've seen that the requirement for snow days varies wildly depending on where you live. In Pennsylvania, where I used to live, snow days were common and happened every year, pretty much whenever there were about three to four inches of snow on the ground. Since I moved to Wisconsin, I haven't had any snow days (I was in Middle/High school here for five years), even when the weather was really crummy and our buses had trouble with the snow on the roads. I guess most of it is how people look at snow, in Wisconsin they just consider it a fact of life and deal with it efficiently, and in the part of Pennsylvania I was in they seemed to try to ignore the snow as much as possible, which lead to lots of unplowed roads and an inability to get to school.

[Emanku]

Hahahaha

I like this thread now. Why? Because it's hilarious to hear some of the reactions people have to snow. I live in Calgary, Alberta, Canada which is notorious for the unpredictability of the weather. It can be quite hot in the middle of winter or we could have a blizzard in the middle of summer.

Anyway, I don't think any of Calgary's schools have ever been closed due to the weather, at least not since I've been attending them. In winter, 4-6 inches of snow is typically good driving conditions. 1 foot is an annoyance. And I can't remember it ever getting above 2.5 feet so I can't guarantee they wouldn't close down then, but they've stayed open in blizzards before. Temperature doesn't seem to matter either. Students will often skip out when conditions are bad, but the schools will be open.

I remember visiting California close to the Christmas season one year. All of the locals that were outside (there weren't many) were bundled up in thick coats. My family stuck out like a sore thumb in our t-shirts and shorts. It snowed while we were there, but the temperature was above freezing so it all melted almost as soon as it hit the ground. But according to the radio, they were debating whether to close the schools that day because of the weather.

[Tringard]

I experienced just one snow day while growing up. We saw snow falling and called it a snow day, even though none actually stayed on the ground. Everything shut down on account of seeing snow . I remember two other occasions where snow fell and stuck, but it was at times when we were off school anyway.

Live (and grew up) in arizona.

[Tenshi no Ai]

Hahahaha

I like this thread now. Why? Because it's hilarious to hear some of the reactions people have to snow. I live in Calgary, Alberta, Canada which is notorious for the unpredictability of the weather. It can be quite hot in the middle of winter or we could have a blizzard in the middle of summer.

Anyway, I don't think any of Calgary's schools have ever been closed due to the weather, at least not since I've been attending them. In winter, 4-6 inches of snow is typically good driving conditions. 1 foot is an annoyance. And I can't remember it ever getting above 2.5 feet so I can't guarantee they wouldn't close down then, but they've stayed open in blizzards before. Temperature doesn't seem to matter either. Students will often skip out when conditions are bad, but the schools will be open.

*only lives a province over to the west* So with the rain situation guess you can see where I come from since it's mountain/forest-land here and not prarie/no-mountain-land (Minus the Rocky Mountains of course but either than those in the distance Calgary's just a wide-open space :/)
4-6 inches here is like, trouble for tiny cars to try and climb hills :/ I've watched them and it's funny tryign to guess who's going to make it up and who's going to fishtale and get stuck^^

[Lady Macbeth]

It's good to see that the sourthern half of our state tries to keep up with us in regard to dealing with winter weather.

UW-Barron County has a "we do not close" policy. The staff know of one time in the 36+ years of the school that they have ever closed due to weather conditions.

It's pretty much taken for granted in this area that if the snow is not above your door, you go to work and school. Some of the more rural school districts have snow days, because the buses have to reach remote areas that the plows might not get to for a couple days, but in town and if your an adult who is employed or goes to college, you're expected to show up on time, regardless of the weather.

[termyt]

College certainly isn't like High School, eh?

I remember my freshman year, we had a real bad cold spell with wind chills in the negative teens. They still didn't cancel classes. The next day, the governor of the state forced the universities to close.

However, since I’ve been out of college, I have not had a single snow day. Imagine that. “Level 3 Snow Emergencyâ€

[Doe Johnson]

I guess I'll describe the only days I remember having a "snow day." One, I believe, was in middle school. This was surely a simple mistake in the morning were the superintendent went outside and thought it would get worse than it was. The day was perfect. I mean, plenty of snow on the ground but not enough for accidents. While I was out building a fort I saw someone on a sled being pulled by a pickup go by. That day was awesome! The one we had at college - school was cancelled at like 4 in the afternoon...for virtual college students! Ugg!! I nearly fell like 5 times just walking to class in the morning, they hadn't even taken the time to clear the sidewalks of the ice layers. I think there must have been like 20 small accidents that day for people out of town. The highway got closed for like 3 days and people from only 15 miles away couldn't make it into town. Yet still, nothing was done about it until the afternoon and it probably only affected a couple hundred people at most. Maybe if the president lived off grounds and actually had to drive further than the 2 blocks it takes him to get to work(he really does drive to work), he would have realized road conditions were poor.

[Kisa]

I would say where the roads are covered and the ice is there and you can;t see....

[SnoringFrog]

Down here in NC, if we get 2-3 inches of snow we're out of school. Our principal has had to get used to it the 3 or 4 years he's been here. He came from Chicago, so to him, what gets us out of schol isn't really anything.

[Katrina]

Snow day can also mean ice. Or threats of ice. School was closed in our area yesterday because it was raining but it was close to the freezing point so their could be ice. (And the people farther up north had bad ice problems.)

[Lynx]

back home they'd close school only...

1) it was so cold it was dangerous to be outside (we're talking -50 w/ wind)
2) there is no visability, which can mean the wind blowing snow as much as falling snow
3) it's snowing so hard so fast the plows cant keep up

[Warrior4Christ]

what's a snow day?

Non-existant.

Although in primary school, we could take the day off if it was too hot... like over 37 degrees C or something...
(But some people didn't have air conditioners at home...)

[mitsuki lover]

SNow Day=
Actually I think in some places where I live a snow day would be one where you would need it to have been a regular blizzard the day or night before.

[Kawaiikneko]

Our school is private, so we base our snow days off about three other school districts. They ALL have to be closed for ours to be closed... So one day almost every school was closed in the city and we still had to go to school AND walk across the street between classes because our school is in two different buildings. Yeah, that was fun in uniform skirts....

but a snow day here mostly means completely ice covered roads and more than 5 or 6 inches of snow... granted, we have like a bubble around our city that keeps all the snow away and puts it over in Licking county... they get tons of snow and they can't get out of their houses, but no, we get like flurries...

up where I used to live by the great lakes we could get tons of snow from lake effect but everyone was used to it so we never closed. I do remember once though when it was too cold to go out without a face mask and we got to stay home from school, but I was sad because I couldn't go outside to play in the snow.