It might be hard to believe, but Tuesday is only the twelfth time New York City has cancelled school because of snow since 1978.
With a historic nor’easter that had threatened to drop as much as 36 inches of snow on the Northeast, the ever-resilient city of New York was forced to give students a very rare snow day. Had this been a normal snowstorm, dropping, say, even a foot of snow, students would still have had to come in to class.
How much snow does it take to cancel school where you live? Reddit user Alexandr Trubetskoy put together this map last year, pulling data from hundreds of Reddit responses and NOAA’s average tabulation of annual snow days. The map shows an estimated amount of snow that would generally shutter schools in each U.S. county.
Throughout the Northeast, Midwest, and Canada, you can plan on going to school with anything less than a foot of snow on the ground. Sorry, kids. Throughout the South and along the West Coast, they get excited for flurries. All it can take is “any snow” to close school for the day.
The map touches on how different regions approach inclement winter weather. As Trubetskoy notes, the Midwest and Great Plains not only consider snow and ice accumulation in their cancellation policy, but also wind chill. Meanwhile, the mere prediction of snow is enough to cancel school in the South.
Trubetskoy explains that major cities like Chicago and New York have considerably more resources than their neighboring areas, and thus will need considerable accumulation to cancel school. Case in point, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio was heavily criticized in 2014 for keeping schools open after a nor’easter dumped over 12 inches of snow in the city. From 1983 to 1995, New York City schools had zero snow days.
Trubetskoy makes one interesting point about the policy of school closures over the last few decades: “To everyone saying ‘I grew up in so-and-so and we never closed school,’ policies have changed in the last 20 years to make closing a much more common occurrence. Just because schools stayed open back then doesn’t mean they do these days.”
Data generally suggests that the policy of snow day school cancellation is, in fact, rising.
As Nathan Yau at FlowingData adds, the Trubetskoy map is in-line with average snowfall totals in each state: The more snowfall, the more rigorous the cancellation policy.
With a historic nor’easter that had threatened to drop as much as 36 inches of snow on the Northeast, the ever-resilient city of New York was forced to give students a very rare snow day. Had this been a normal snowstorm, dropping, say, even a foot of snow, students would still have had to come in to class.
How much snow does it take to cancel school where you live? Reddit user Alexandr Trubetskoy put together this map last year, pulling data from hundreds of Reddit responses and NOAA’s average tabulation of annual snow days. The map shows an estimated amount of snow that would generally shutter schools in each U.S. county.
Throughout the Northeast, Midwest, and Canada, you can plan on going to school with anything less than a foot of snow on the ground. Sorry, kids. Throughout the South and along the West Coast, they get excited for flurries. All it can take is “any snow” to close school for the day.
The map touches on how different regions approach inclement winter weather. As Trubetskoy notes, the Midwest and Great Plains not only consider snow and ice accumulation in their cancellation policy, but also wind chill. Meanwhile, the mere prediction of snow is enough to cancel school in the South.
Trubetskoy explains that major cities like Chicago and New York have considerably more resources than their neighboring areas, and thus will need considerable accumulation to cancel school. Case in point, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio was heavily criticized in 2014 for keeping schools open after a nor’easter dumped over 12 inches of snow in the city. From 1983 to 1995, New York City schools had zero snow days.
Trubetskoy makes one interesting point about the policy of school closures over the last few decades: “To everyone saying ‘I grew up in so-and-so and we never closed school,’ policies have changed in the last 20 years to make closing a much more common occurrence. Just because schools stayed open back then doesn’t mean they do these days.”
Data generally suggests that the policy of snow day school cancellation is, in fact, rising.
As Nathan Yau at FlowingData adds, the Trubetskoy map is in-line with average snowfall totals in each state: The more snowfall, the more rigorous the cancellation policy.
In over half the country 3 inches of snow will shut down schools. Here in the south I marvel at the many times that the schools make fools of themselves by making the call based on a forecast of snow that never falls. mention snow in NC and even a lot of the government closes down. I even see it in my business. When I worked up north I remember one early closing for snow. It had already put down 10 inches and 10 more were predicted. We actually closed here last week because it had iced about 1/10th of an inch the night before. What was amazing was the call came to close early at 8 pm after we had already been open for almost the whole day. the reason given refreezing (that wasn't occurring causing low sales). Well Mr. CEO we have low sales after 6 o'clock on Christmas Eve but you are damn sure not going to shutter it early! The pussification of America.
ReplyDeleteLike Denver in the outer burbs, we rely on the sun to deal with the snow, not the government. The sun works well, the government lacks snow removal equipment.
DeleteIn 2003 we had 4.5 feet of snow over a weekend. The neighborhood got together and shoveled and snow blowered our way out of the neighborhood as the county lacked equipment to get to the side streets. Best the government not invest in expensive eqiipment that would sit unused most of the winter. Invest in a good snow shovel.