Overreacting to Weather

[Nietz]

1) Stockholm, Sweden

2) No amount of bad weather closes anything down here. It's been snowing like crazy this winter, and it's been quite cold to boot, but everything is up and running... except for the bloody public transportation.

As we are entering February, the worst part of winter is starting. Now the weather changes from below 0 C to above by the day, causing the snow which has fallen all winter to thaw and freeze over and over and over again, causing major ice-slicks pretty much everywhere, but business goes on as usual. This winter has been quite bad though, the hospitals are reporting large amounts of injury from slippery ice.

Oh, let's check the weather report for the next coming days:
Friday: -3 C, Saturday: +1 C, Sunday: -1 C... Damn. >_<

What's even more hilarious is that I visited my sister last weekend, who lives in a town up north of Sweden. There it was around -25 C. Just standing around outside caused my eyelashes and beard to freeze and turn white.

 

[ace_of_something]

In the midwest on the plains they only cancel snow if it's 6 inches high and hasn't had time to be cleared. If it's two feet high as long as the city has had sufficient time to clear the main roads. School presses on.
More often school is canceled simply for being 'too cold' because they don't want children waiting in -10 Fahrenheit not counting the windchill.

The less common snow is in an area the more likely they are to cancel for it. I have family in 'the south' (Louisiana and Texas) and I think last year it just 'dusted' snow and they canceled not only school but a lot of office jobs. Because they don't have plows, salt, or any of that. A lot of people have rear wheel drive and all that.

Personally I love it when it snows because as a law enforcement official, everyone knows that less crimes (except domestic) are committed when people can't get out of their house.

 

[harv3034]

1) Austin, Texas
2) The only school closure that has taken place in my time here was the result of automatic weapons fire. The climate in this part of the world is actually quite pleasant.

Austin, Texas. I'm assuming you attend UT based on "weapons fire", I assume you heard about the shooting there last semester. Scared the crap out of me...

P.S. I'm actually from austin and in my opinion, it's a bit too warm.
(Before you judge or ask "why?", I'm at OU cause UT didn't accept me.)

 

[rockingnic]

I live in Rochester, New York and we have class after it snows like 6 inches in 1 hour (which is alot here) although certain teachers might delay or cancel class themselves but the campus is still open. The worst we do get though is ice storms, which can freeze and break electrical and phone lines, leaving hundreds, sometimes thousands of people without power during the winter. It's normal that it gets below 0 F, especially with our wind chills. One day it was about 0 F and the wind chill brought it down to -20 F. It's pretty windy here too, average wind speed is 10-15 mph constantly. Only during the summer do we have no wind so it get hot and humid really fast. We rarely get to 90 F but the humidity brings it to 100 F, I know people that come from the southern states like Florida and they say it gets humid here. During the Spring and Fall, it can rain and flood streets every now and then although it never really gets more than 2-4 inch deep puddles on the side of the roads. We are about 1 hour from Buffalo, New York and we are south of Lake Ontario so most of our rain and snow is lake-effect which does screw us over most of the time. There's a saying here, "Don't plan your day here too much because the weather will turn to shit when you least want it". It always starts to rain and snow when I'm about to go out when it does. We get significantly more rain than Seattle, WA. Also one day it can be 50 F, the next 30 F and 2 days later it'll be 80 F, you can never have constant weather other than shitty here...

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

1) Austin, Texas
2) The only school closure that has taken place in my time here was the result of automatic weapons fire. The climate in this part of the world is actually quite pleasant.

Austin, Texas. I'm assuming you attend UT based on "weapons fire", I assume you heard about the shooting there last semester. Scared the crap out of me...

P.S. I'm actually from austin and in my opinion, it's a bit too warm.
(Before you judge or ask "why?", I'm at OU cause UT didn't accept me.)

I didn't even notice to be honest, in spite of being in the building across the street from where the whole affair ended. My Roommate was freaking out, but considering the pair of locked doors and a thousand other targets between the shooter and myself, I wasn't terribly worried.

And, I don't subscribe to the irrational hatred of OU, probably because my time in the Army gave me my fill of such things when I was required to resent the other branches.

And, for the record, I find the climate during the summer to be fairly terrible but I'll take that because it yields mild winters and incredible spring and fall weather. Yesterday for example it was 65 and sunny, which as far as I'm concerned is the perfect "walking around outside" weather.

 

[Napierdalac]

Denmark.

Currently below 0 at night and above at day.. All of the snow is gone atm. (we got a lot of snow, more than useall) Nothing have been closed this winter so far.

But people whine over the temperature.. I mean come on, if you can't handle beeing outside in a t shirt when it's 4 degrees you really need to live somewhere else !

 

[Azure-Supernova]

1) London

2) A snowflake

Seriously though, I don't want to generalise for the whole of the UK but where I am at the slightest bit of snowfall can disrupt many many things.

Yup. We had a couple of inches over winter and everything ground to a halt. Perhaps we're simply unprepared?

 

[queenorivers]

[deleted]

 

[Atmos Duality]

Overreaction to Weather?
No such thing exists here.

Spoiler: Story Time

The day is December 6th, 2009. I have two Finals to attend in the morning, but there's just one problem...
It's the first heavy winter blitz of the season, and it's going to turn out to be one of the worst of the season.

So, my Final is at 8:00am, and I normally have a 40-45 minute commute.
Along the way, I see:
1) Cars sliding everywhere. Personally watched 3 lose control ahead of me, and literally over two dozen more already roadside.
2) Deer gleefully hopping across the road...and nearly getting hit (myself included)
3) Visibility of about 25 feet at best
4) People going 40mph tops on the INTERSTATE (which is normally kept well-cleared and salted)
5) Did I mention the cars? Yeah. "White Ice". Compacted aggregate snowfall and refrozen melt.
What looks just like snow might not be so.

My odyssey took an hour and 30 minutes, plus 10 minutes of marching across campus.
When I arrived at the doors for my Math Final, I looked like a glorious wreck. All of the students who lived on campus (or in the building) could only stand in at awe of my dripping, ice-crusted form like I was the messenger from some far-off kingdom.

I saluted my professor, saying "Just a little bad weather, ma'am." and we all had a good laugh.

But the story does not end there. That was the only Final I had that day, but I had another one the day afterwards. The problem (besides the bloomin obvious), was that this winter storm had scarcely started, and was slated to continue well through the day, into the night, and ending the following morning.
Thus, I was forced to spend the night at the campus hotel.
Throughout the entire night, I heard the sounds of Police, Rescue, and Ambulance sirens. They scarcely stopped for but a few minutes before resuming.
People were being brought in by the droves. Traffic became more trouble than it was worth, and everything else came to a dead halt.

And in spite of all this, the university stubbornly refused to cancel classes.

Just as a bit of personal irony: It later came to light (after I had already paid for my room and settled in) that my remaining Final was made OPTIONAL by my professor ("If you want, you can opt to keep the grade you currently have. Or you can take the Final as scheduled"), but no matter.

Cars crash, sirens sing, and ice coats the world, but the show must go on!

 

[esperandote]

Mexico, No snow here.

It takes a hurricane for schools to close. It would the the apocalypsis for my boss to give us the half day.

 

[spoot-smeg]

1 the uk, Newcastle

2 armageddon

 

[Criquefreak]

Utah

I recall having gone to school in fog so thick that twenty feet away was invisible.

Then there was a few times walking to school on the road or wading waist deep through snow.

But those were decades back, I'm sure they've turned the overreacting up a few notches by now.

 

[cathou]

Montreal, Canada

we need to have at least 18 inches of snow in 24 hours, or have a severe ice storm to close the schools.

 

[JezebelinHell]

Ohio, I feel like it is completely random here as far as when things are closed up. Depends on who has to make the call and how they are feeling that day I guess.

At one point I lived on one side of the jet stream and worked about 50 miles on the other side. Seems like about 90% of the time we get more snow on the side I live on so when I would call off work I just knew my boss thought I was BSing him about not being able to come in. Driving to the next town there is a visible line of difference in the snow, it is kind of neat but a pain when you have to convince the people that have never had to deal with it. Eventually I was taking in pictures to show them the difference and the fact that my car had to get down a 750ft gravel covered driveway with 2 nice size hills.

 

[GeorgW]

Why would you complain if you get to skip school??
I live in Sweden, and we have really harsh weather. And we never close our schools, that's ridiculous. We go to school even if it's -40[sup]o[/sup] and a blizzard, you're all wimps! (jk)

 

[Mr.Squishy]

In Sweden our schools never get canceled. Hell, the snow can be 2 meter high and the wind blowing like hell and we are still required to go.

No such thing as to snowy or anything here.

Neighbour from Norway here. We have just the same situation, although I faintly remember once when the classroom was at -30 C degrees - we got that class off.

 

[SamElliot'sMustache]

1)Michigan
2)It used to be that it would have to be more than six inches, or have roads that were thick with ice in order for school to be closed, but that was a good six years ago, and I've noticed that people have become way more panicky about snow since then (we got two inches on a Tuesday last week, and people were packing into the grocery store buying up tons of stuff like it was the apocalypse. I'm ashamed to have these people living in my state.).

 

[GodofCider]

Vermont. Schools are almost universally closed when roads become impassable, or simply too dangerous for a bus to drive upon. Bear in mind these roads are often steep dirt roads in out of the way areas. Even then, more often then not, there will be half a day of school.

I can't recall a school in the area closing due to temperatures; assuming heating is functioning properly within the school itself.

 

[ToboTheHobo]

1) Denmark

2) Really bad. A week ago the roads were completly covered in ice and they didnt cancel.

 

[SpiralDots]

Scotland

In all my years at school, it's only ever been fully closed for a few days (and half of those are just because it's so cold the pipes froze so they're not allowed to open) and those are very rare - the bus kids would sometimes get sent home if the snow started getting bad, but that was it. They didn't close unless they absolutely had to. Often the buses wouldn't run because the country roads can get really dangerous, however those that were able to make it to school still had to go (in fact during the winter we'd be snowed in and so the only way we could get food was me buying it during my lunch breaks and bringing it home as we just couldn't get the cars up the track)

At Uni a few classes have been cancelled, but those are all for the teachers that live out in the country and are either snowed-in or the buses aren't running so they can't get in.