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My daughter is a college student in the Boise/Meridian area. She's had school cancelled a few days this week due to snow. But when I look at the forecast from afar, it seems you are only getting 2-3".
Is the Boise area not able to handle a few inches? Surely you can drive around with a couple inches of snow on the ground, no?
I spent 45 years in the Minneapolis, MN area. Things only got cancelled if they were 6+ inches. All the metro cities had good snow plow systems in place, but you could still get a round town with a couple inches of snow/slush on the road.
This isn't like a Kansas City or somewhere where they rarely get snow, can't handle it, and don't know how to drive on it. Surely Boise gets snow quite regularly, even for a generally arid climate, doesn't it? What am I missing with the school closures?
My daughter is a college student in the Boise/Meridian area. She's had school cancelled a few days this week due to snow. But when I look at the forecast from afar, it seems you are only getting 2-3".
Is the Boise area not able to handle a few inches? Surely you can drive around with a couple inches of snow on the ground, no?
I spent 45 years in the Minneapolis, MN area. Things only got cancelled if they were 6+ inches. All the metro cities had good snow plow systems in place, but you could still get a round town with a couple inches of snow/slush on the road.
This isn't like a Kansas City or somewhere where they rarely get snow, can't handle it, and don't know how to drive on it. Surely Boise gets snow quite regularly, even for a generally arid climate, doesn't it? What am I missing with the school closures?
Boise doesn't typically get a lot of snow. It's located in the high desert, so we get little precipitation. Long term average is about 6" of snow in both December and January, with a typical snowfall event around 1-3 inches. Our climate is much more mild than many assume. More in dept info here: https://www.weather.gov/boi/climatesummary
So this is what our road plowing crews are provisioned for. It would be very wasteful to spend huge amounts of money to handle the occasional higher levels of snowfall with no disruptions. And a few inches of snow isn't a problem, generally doesn't cause school closures unless there's freezing rain or something like that.
I don't know about your daughter's college, but my kids are in the Boise School District and we had just one cancelled day on Wed when we got 5-6 inches of snow from around 4am to 8am. Timing matters, since this means they could not plow/salt the streets before students and employees would travel to schools. We also have people coming from mountain areas, which adds to the safety concerns with icy roads.
It looks like some schools canceled today because the NWS issued a winter storm warning starting Thurs night with forecasts for significant snowfall overnight. Yet snow totals ended up being a lot less than anticipated.
Last edited by AnythingOutdoors; 01-12-2024 at 04:31 PM..
Looks like we're supposed to get 8in tomorrow? Not sure on the "CD-legality" of weather app links so I'll leave it out
I'll believe it when I see it. Weather forecasts here are pretty hit or miss. I think this may be due to how the surrounding mountains modify weather systems.
For what it's worth, if you think the reaction to snow in Boise is something, take a look at this. One-third of an inch of snow just caused Eugene Oregon to declare a Snow and Ice Emergency. All flights into the airport are cancelled, highways and roads are closed, most businesses are closed, the schools would be closed, but it's a weekend.
Oregonians act like a dusting of snow is the end of the world. It's a good laugh for anybody who knows what real snow is.
For what it's worth, if you think the reaction to snow in Boise is something, take a look at this. One-third of an inch of snow just caused Eugene Oregon to declare a Snow and Ice Emergency. All flights into the airport are cancelled, highways and roads are closed, most businesses are closed, the schools would be closed, but it's a weekend.
Oregonians act like a dusting of snow is the end of the world. It's a good laugh for anybody who knows what real snow is.
Hah. To be fair, those areas of OR/WA often get rain that freezes followed by another layer of snow on top. Snow in Boise is easier to deal with because it's colder and drier.
Speaking of... tons of snow last night. Got around 8" at our house. Super light and dry, almost like talcum powder. Tons of happy skiers today, going to be a fantastic blue smoke day up at Bogus Basin.
I don't know about your daughter's college, but my kids are in the Boise School District and we had just one cancelled day on Wed when we got 5-6 inches of snow from around 4am to 8am. Timing matters, since this means they could not plow/salt the streets before students and employees would travel to schools. We also have people coming from mountain areas, which adds to the safety concerns with icy roads.
Agree, sometimes the timing matters. When you get dumped on 4-8am, sometimes plows don't have a chance to clear things up before school. And 5-6" is different than 2". Even if plows can't get out, 2" should not close schools I wouldn't think.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cloudy Dayz
For what it's worth, if you think the reaction to snow in Boise is something, take a look at this. One-third of an inch of snow just caused Eugene Oregon to declare a Snow and Ice Emergency. All flights into the airport are cancelled, highways and roads are closed, most businesses are closed, the schools would be closed, but it's a weekend.
Oregonians act like a dusting of snow is the end of the world. It's a good laugh for anybody who knows what real snow is.
Agree closing for a dusting sounds silly. But if it's really ICE and not snow, even a thin layer of icy on the roads can cause havoc. Hard to tell what they really got.
Agree, sometimes the timing matters. When you get dumped on 4-8am, sometimes plows don't have a chance to clear things up before school. And 5-6" is different than 2". Even if plows can't get out, 2" should not close schools I wouldn't think.
The forecast was for 5-6" over Thurs night, which looked very likely. Instead, the storm took longer to get here and we got dumped on Fri evening on into Sat. If/when to cancel classes is a judgement call. Some schools based their decision on expected weather the night before, whereas others waited until early morning to make the call. A couple days of missed (or virtual) classes isn't a big deal. Can we please give people the benefit of the doubt.
When school is cancelled for Snow Days I find it ironic that those are some of the busier days 16 miles UP the mountain to go skiing. The people in charge of declaring snow days probably secretly call them Powder Days. #ThinkSnow
,,,,,Oregonians act like a dusting of snow is the end of the world. It's a good laugh for anybody who knows what real snow is. ..............
Except those are not Oregonians, They are Californians who have moved there from places that don't get snow or very much rain. The residents of Seattle are just as bad, or even worse about any sort of precipitation. If you spend most of your life in Los Angeles, you never learn how to drive on ice and snow, or on wet roads when it is raining.
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