We got three calls this morning at 5am. Two on our cell phones, one on our home phone. Plus two emails. Yes, school was cancelled for our three kids on the first snow day of the school year, due to an impending snowstorm. Oddly enough, when I went downstairs at 6am to cancel an important meeting I had for today, in order to be home for the kids, there wasn’t a hint of snow falling. I checked the forecast just to make sure whoever cancelled school wasn’t hallucinating. To be fair, it did call for 6″-8″ of snow by nightfall. By 7am, a few flurries were appearing. By 9am, the end of rush hour, it had finally turned into a modest snowfall, with about a half inch of snow on the ground. My wife surmised that they were concerned the roads wouldn’t be plowed for the trip home from schools around 3pm, because there sure wasn’t an issue this morning. Normal dismissal is well before rush hour, usually not a problem in suburban Chicago where we have very good snow removal and street treatment. Even now, around noon, there is just over an inch of accumulation. Maybe the white-out blizzard is yet to come in the next few hours?
This wouldn’t be the first time in the last few years we’ve had a snow day for what didn’t appear to present any transportation issues. Maybe this afternoon will be a lot worse, but for now I have three bored kids who barely have enough snow to make a snowball lol! Hopefully I can get a couple of them outside soon…
We got tons of snow yesterday! I (stupidly) left for a chiropractor appointment at 3:15 and the roads were terrible. I almost spun out into a stop sign… Definitely worth a snow day here, IMO. But we’re a bit far from you.
All in all, we had maybe 4″ by normal school dismissal, maybe 6″+ by this morning. Definitely not worth a snow day here, but it could have been worse so it was probably justified. At least one of my kids spent most of the day outside!
We had the same experience this morning well East of you… cell phones ringing, but only rain outside. A minute later, clumps of snow falling from the sky like a blizzard of snow-cones. Too wet to play in, but at least things are above freezing and melting fast, so the drive to and from work tonight on our unplowed roads won’t be bad.
Yes I had a pretty good idea too, but I at least expected it to be snowing before they called it lol. I’ll definitely be changing contact infos. At least my android phone nicely turns off the ringer for anyone not on my contact list before 7am;-)
Gee, Darren, you should have called me for your forecast. I knew last night that you were having a snow day, lol! My FB wall was hopping last night with all my Chicago pals who were kicking back because of it. BTW, if my phones rang at 5a because the school was calling to tell me it was cancelled, they’d be getting a fake number from me the next open day. No one calls me that early unless it’s an emergency and school closing because of a snowflake does not qualify, lol.
It’s about 4″ total now here. It’s still coming down about the same as it has been since 9am, so it could hit at least the 6″ minimum they forecast.
How much do you have now Darren? We have about 4-5″ of new snow in the NWburbs and its still going strong..
Wow, you got way less than us only 25 min away! I just measured 5 in on my van and 4 in on the driveway that has been shoveled twice already!