How much snow does it take to close your public schools? (night, storm)

[macjr82]

just the threat of snow in coastal NC

[x2cme]

In this part of Texas, just the mere thought of snow will close every business down and send everyone racing to the store to stock up on emergency provisions... then of course it doesn't really snow, it ices.

[Canine*Castle]

We had an icy day this past Winter and although school would have normally been closed, our new Supt. decided it should open at 10 a.m. Well, parents thought differently and we had over 25% absent that day because the roads really were a little treacherous.

[dude1984]

Whenever the buses can't drive is when the schools are closed. There usually has to be at least a foot of snow.

[Lamplight]

I light dusting will close schools here. Actually, I can remember one particular day when all schools were closed, and it ended up being about 40 and raining. This happened long after I was done with school, of course. I'm sure the kids didn't mind!

[Winter-40c]

Schools never close up here because of snow we would need 1000feet of snow for the schools to close.

[Nomadicus]

I suppose a 1/4" that stuck would cause panic and shut not only the schools down but most every thing else too here in central FL.

[Infamous92]

The schools never close when there's snow however the private schools and schools in the suburbs close very often. NYC schools did close when we got that record 26 inches of snow a few years ago and even when we got 5 inches last March.

NYC schools don't really close during snowstorms because there's a lot of less fortunate families that need to eat. Most kids don't go when it snows though (including me).

[GeorgiaGirl14]

Just a 100% chance of snow predicted happening in the day will cause an early closure or cancel. It doesn't have to be falling. For delays, this year there was a big threat of the roads being a skating rink (though it didn't happen in my area) and it caused a delay. Someone said they'd test the ground temperature early in the morning and if it came out to 32, they'd recommend a delay. Because we were in the middle of a long cold snap, even though on the day of the failstorm (barely anything fell at all), it came out to 32 even though WAA warmed us up during the day.

However, the reason why delays are happening for every little thing is because of this:

On January 26th, 2004, I think many forecasters busted bigtime on the forecast in my NWS area. There was an Ice Storm Warning in the Atlanta, GA area however Atlanta didn't get hit at all while East GA, Augusta area north got slammed with an Ice Storm. The county north of me cancelled, however my county didn't, as I think the superintendent thought the weather would improve. It took the entire county losing power for him to cancel the rest of the day (the generator at my elementary school froze so we had no power).

After that storm, my dad says any time freezing rain or snow is falling and it looks like its not about to stop, you are staying home, even if school isn't cancelled. (Part of the problem is I'm 15 minutes away from school, not by foot)

[B1987]

In London 0.5" or even less sometimes.