What On Earth Is A Snowday

[jmni]

I've lived in PA, NJ, and the south and now the southwest. In New Mexico the snow is very dry. It's more difficult to drive hear in the snow than in the northeast. If the wind is fast it really crusts your windows. The roads are inevitably a mess every time. Luckily it only snows a few times a year and only a few inches.

 

[Nam]

I live in California. EVERYTHING closes for snow, but we get snow (under 5") less often than once a decade. What is really pathetic is how often they close schools for rain. Californians seriously can't drive in the rain. We melt. It is... really pathetic.

I've lived in the LA area. Once there was snow in Santa Clarita and rain in LA. People lost their minds.

I live in the midwest now. 4-5 inches are expected tomorrow. I hope not. I personally don't like big, noisy machines, so it's shoveling by hand for me! The only great thing about snow is the silence it creates. Everything gets real quiet. And if you can ignore how cold you are getting, it's kinda pretty.

I think we only had 4 or 5 snow days last year? I can't remember. We are more urban and less farm community so they don't consider how long it takes plows to get to the roads out in the country. Many times, school is just delayed a couple hours which still counts as a full day so days are not added to the end of the year.

 

[catjudo]

I live in Florida. We don't have snow days. On the other hand, we do occasionally get hurricane days instead.

 

[Deleted member 27340]

It makes sense now, I guess. You don't have enough snowploughs to clear all roads within the same hour (we do, snow can come during night and the ploughs will start really, really early in the morning and clear all roads before people get up), and your drivers education doesn't have enough about driving in such weather. Here, driving on small and poorly maintained roads, in rain, snow, black ice, ice, ice and snow and rain at the same time etc. are major parts of drivers education. Things don't really stop unless an avalanche goes off or something like that.

Do you change your tires? We've got summer tires and winter tires. The winter tires has often got metal spikes on them, making even black ice possible to drive on.

And yeah black ice is pretty common over here, it's everywhere, mostly in the transition between autumn-winter and winter-spring because things freeze, melt and freeze again. If the roads aren't salted that can create pretty bad black ice. So it shows up mostly on deserted roads and less used parking lots, and people walking will encounter it more often than cars and buses (oh and we put tire chains on buses and people often use them on bigger cars).

 

[Anarchy]

Many times, school is just delayed a couple hours which still counts as a full day so days are not added to the end of the year.

so it really is a day prison, with sentances to be served.

 

[Friday]

I'm too lazy to google atm.
Does snowday mean school's out because of snow or something because that'd be weird..?

Rofl... Yep! Also synonymous with skipping school or work to do something fun, but not getting in trouble with it (That's it kids! I'm declaring a snow day! I'll call your school...We're going to Disneyland / the beach / the movies/ etc.)

The city I live in right now only gets a couple weeks of snow, at most. 2 million people, and 3 snow plows. The side streets never get done. Ever. Even the main roads and highways take 2-3 days to get done, even once. Add in all the hills, and the whole place simply shuts down when it snows.

Even when I've lived places in this country at see a lot of snow, and have the infrastructure to deal with it... The no walking thing means snow days, too. There are very few cities and towns over here one can walk everywhere they need to go. Most require a car. So if there is a sudden storm at the wrong time of day? Half the students stuck at home, cause they live 15-20 kilometers away and the roads won't be cleared until after the school day is half over? They close the schools. Or do a late start.

 

[Friday]

Here's a fun one for you, though: In some parts of SE Asia where I grew up they had HeatDays. First month of school were half days, and if it got too hot, they simply closed the school entirely. No air conditioning. Temp 100F (38C) + Even at night, hotter in the daytime, and Humidity 99%. Even half days meant at least 1 or 2 kids would faint from heat exhaustion / dehydration every single day. Full days (like when it stayed hot past the first month) meant half the class would be sent home or to the hospital sick. One day it was so bad there were only 3 kids left in my class of 44. My teacher was shouting at the principle that it was insane that we were operating on a full schedule, and tomorrow if the principal wanted to melt teaching 3 kids, fine. But she was going home at lunch.

But when I lived in the desert as a kid (120F 49C in the shade)? Full days of school. Granted, we were all drinking liters of water even at our desks. But kids weren't fainting left and right, either. Didn't feel like you were swimming through the air. Running around like crazy. Just drinking constantly. We had snow ONCE when I was in the desert. Schools closed, not because people couldn't get anywhere, but because not even the teachers would stay inside to miss it.

<grin> that's part of the other thing about snow days in cities that don't get a lot of snow. It's an excuse for a holiday. Most people jump on that. Even if they can get to school or work... They'd rather stay home and play.

Moving around so much it always cracks me up how what's normal in one place is OMG! in the next. :D

 

[Sandstone]

Isn't it the job of the British to discuss the weather? And of older Brits like me to say "In my day we didn't have all these snow days, we trudged to school through 6 foot drifts and were grateful"?

The last time we had bad snow here, I got to work an hour late, having driven in my vintage little sports car for 45 miles of skiddy roads. I found 3 out of about 60 people at work - all aged 50+ and all living over 20 miles from the office.

 

[Lucycat]

We don't get much snow here but we do get the chaos when we have a little flurry. We have loads of snowploughs but they still can't keep up with clearing all roads and we are very rural, so the roads very narrow.

It is a school that has to declare it a snow day and pronounce themselves closed. A parent calling in is not accepted and will be an unauthorised absence.

We cannot use spiked tyres as they damage the road surface when there is no ice or snow. We do own snow chains that are put over the existing tyres in the event of snow but usually by the time you have got them out of the bag the snow has melted!

 

[Ed Norton]

I see the large trucks and buses with snow chains all the time. as far as private vehicles, never seen it, but NY'ers are pretty good at driving in snow and ice.

 

[Kas_Can_Fly]

The only snow plough I've ever seen was on the Simpsons - I've never seen one here, we get snow anually and anually we run out of enough grit to keep the main roads clear. Yes a part of it is skiving, but a part of it is rooted in serious health and safety. You may only live a mile away from your school/workplace, but a teacher or colleague may live 20 away. Some of those roads may be main roads and therefore easier to travel on but just as many may be country roads, also most cars here just aren't made for snow use. I suppose winter tyres could be found if you looked hard enough and paid a premium for them for a few days use a year, but for most it's not practical.

 

[Deleted member 27340]

It's really funny how we adapt to one thing and just that... I'm sure you know Norway's cold and white half the year with 4-6 hours of daylight, our roads are also really narrow and most of them are in terrible condition (that's a huge LOL: with all that oil money we still can't afford good roads, and blame it on the weather. Yet, what a shock, Sweden has better roads) but we get them cleared. If you're driving over the mountains, yes we drive there in the winter, you usually have to follow a snowplough with all the other cars driving that route because the road's gonna get filled up with snow again after a few minutes.

@FridayJones The desert thing was really cool to hear about! We sometimes do the same, just the other way around. If the weather is really great, like 35 degrees or something like that people go crazy and everyone will stay home or at the beach both because it's too hot to do anything at all and because we don't wanna miss it. Eventually we'll end up hiding in the shadows of our air-conditioned homes anyway.