A question for northerners

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You sound like my dh did years ago when we first started dating. He told me he knew that he had lived in South Dakota too long when we found himself standing outside on his friends front porch and was simply chitchatting. He was wearing shorts and a t-shirt, the temperature was 32 F. :eek:

There is a reason why I don’t live up North. Nope, not happening! 😃
With the endless days of cold we’ve had lately, 32 F sounds balmy.

We get both extremes, of course. 90s are common in the summer, and triple digits happen sometimes.
 
I read in the paper that the rule here for the public schools is that if the sustained wind chills are negative 20 then schools will be cancelled. They are worse than that now and thus school is cancelled. When I was a child, this was not the case. I don’t think there was a formal policy.

I live in Omaha, NE, and typically don’t wear a coat at all unless it is 0 or below. I probably wouldn’t do that except that my former foster baby has started trying to mimic my behavior and she’s only 3. So now I’m suffering in a coat and mittens around her.

I’d rather not have the heat but we deal with that as well. The summers are just as extreme.
 
In Maine it has to be dangerously cold, namely for the kids that walk to school. Otherwise, school is on 😃
 
That’s extreme.
I didn’t realize that the quote from the school board’s website didn’t indicate that those were ‘windchill’ temps. It’s not unknown in one town of Labrador to have schools closed for several days in a row since -40º actual temps with high winds are not rare. Our area tends to not get quite that cold but usually we do get at least a day or two per year of ‘cold’ closures (as opposed to ‘storm’ closures which are more frequent). Just think how little our kids would attend school if schools closed when temps are -25ºF (-31.7ºC).
 
I read in the paper that the rule here for the public schools is that if the sustained wind chills are negative 20 then schools will be cancelled. They are worse than that now and thus school is cancelled. When I was a child, this was not the case. I don’t think there was a formal policy.

I live in Omaha, NE, and typically don’t wear a coat at all unless it is 0 or below. I probably wouldn’t do that except that my former foster baby has started trying to mimic my behavior and she’s only 3. So now I’m suffering in a coat and mittens around her.

I’d rather not have the heat but we deal with that as well. The summers are just as extreme.
We are still under a wind chill advisory until tomorrow night. Our wind chill is expected to be as low as -15 F.

My dd is a lot like you. She really doesn’t feel the cold too much. I have to get onto her about dressing for the weather.😃

Summers over here are bad too. It’s not uncommon for the temps to get up to 100 in the latter part of July and into August. The humidity doesn’t help either.
 
I live in southeast SD, and the schools here are usuallyclosed because of snow, ice, reduced visibility, and drifting. However, the schools in my hometown and all the surrounding towns are pretty much all called off for tomorrow, even though it stopped snowing Wednesday afternoon and the wind is dying down this evening. I believe they’re closed down due to extreme temperatures. It is currently -9 with a windchill of -36. We had sundogs today, so you know it’s cold out!
So did we in northeastern Nebraska! 😃 😛
 
I didn’t realize that the quote from the school board’s website didn’t indicate that those were ‘windchill’ temps. It’s not unknown in one town of Labrador to have schools closed for several days in a row since -40º actual temps with high winds are not rare. Our area tends to not get quite that cold but usually we do get at least a day or two per year of ‘cold’ closures (as opposed to ‘storm’ closures which are more frequent). Just think how little our kids would attend school if schools closed when temps are -25ºF (-31.7ºC).
I’m glad -40 isn’t common here. Our windchills get wicked, though. The -25 for us is actual, not wind chill. We tend to get a lot of wind.
 
Our area here in Oklahoma is currently experiencing a very serious arctic cold snap as many of you know. Pretty much all the schools are closing because of it. Many kids do not have proper clothing for temperatures that are THIS cold, also many kids walk and have to stand and wait for the bus.

One complaint I have heard that has got me thinking is the fact that schools in the north do not close because of temperatures. Ice and snow yes but not temperatures. I would think if the temps where bad enough they would. So do your schools close when it’s super cold outside. I’m talking unusually cold for your area.

A lot of people out here are praising this decision to close schools but there are some that are really gripping about it. The “I have to work so they should go to school” arguments:rolleyes: But then there is this argument about the temps and how schools in the north don’t close. I’ll admit that one has me curious. So what say you. 😃
We’re in Northern California and I haven’t seen the schools close because of temperatures (it doesn’t get as cold here as some of the far northern states obviously) but when I was in second grade we had school and went out Christmas caroling in town when it was -5. I think it was a little cold for caroling. At least for us California kids!
 
Our area here in Oklahoma is currently experiencing a very serious arctic cold snap as many of you know. Pretty much all the schools are closing because of it. Many kids do not have proper clothing for temperatures that are THIS cold, also many kids walk and have to stand and wait for the bus.
Hi Sabda! Yes, it’s true, school closings here up north are fairly common, usually because of snowfall but also sometimes because of the cost of heating during extremely cold weather. Easier and cheaper just to tack the missed days onto the end of the school year.

When I lived in Oklahoma City, a long time ago, the traffic lights were regulated by exposed treadles in the street. The reason they were exposed was obvious: in case of a malfunction, they didn’t have to dig up the street. The downside was, in the RARE case of a heavy snowfall, the lights just stopped working. I don’t know if that is still the case.
 
It is all what you are used to.

We’ve had morning temps in the -10- -15 range…2 of my boys do NOT wear coats - just sweatshirts over their tshirts and jeans.

The last 2 evenings, one of my boys has met his friends for outdoor ice skating wearing jeans, a tshirt, and a spring jacket. The temps have been between 0-5. He puts the toe warmers in his skates, and then they stay out and play hockey for…I think it was about 3 hours each night.
 
I’m in SE Wisconsin and we have closings for severe weather including extreme low temps. It seems that if the temp before wind chill is 5 degrees or below, it’s a safe bet there will be no school. Last winter we had I think 3 days off for temp and 2 or 3 for snow conditions. Today is potentially one of those days.

When I loved in far NE Pennsylvania, we had a bunch of snow days and delays for snow, and a few for temp too but not as many.

Growing up in Chicago, snow days were rare. Chicago knows how to deal with snow. We did have low temp days though.
 
so far I have had over 100 calls asking about Saturday CCD. today is 20-30s, windy, so lower windchills, freeze warnings (oranges and grapefruits are probably kaput), most people are not sure what “wind chill” means the term is unfamiliar here. Problem will be precipitation. These Texans can’t drive with 60 degrees and rain so heaven help them if there is freezing rain. Saturday should be 40, sunny, but windy, but evidently our little tender tots can’t make it the 3 steps from the car to the school door. Standard rule is if public school closes Friday, there is no CCD Saturday, if you can’t get your child here due to extreme weather (that usually means a hurricane) or any other reason, you don’t have to be here.
 
According to wikipidia:
A sun dog or sundog (scientific name parhelion, plural parhelia, from Greek parēlion, (παρήλιον), παρά(beside) + ήλιος(sun), “beside the sun”; also called a mock sun) is an atmospheric phenomenon that creates bright spots of light in the sky, often on a luminous ring or halo on either side of the sun.[1]
Sundogs are formed by plate shaped hexagonal ice crystals in high and cold cirrus clouds or - during very cold weather - by ice crystals called diamond dust drifting in the air at low level.
I’ve always seen them as basically rainbows in a circle around the sun. I’ve only seen them here in SD when it gets very cold out.
 
Our area here in Oklahoma is currently experiencing a very serious arctic cold snap as many of you know. Pretty much all the schools are closing because of it. Many kids do not have proper clothing for temperatures that are THIS cold, also many kids walk and have to stand and wait for the bus.

One complaint I have heard that has got me thinking is the fact that schools in the north do not close because of temperatures. Ice and snow yes but not temperatures. I would think if the temps where bad enough they would. So do your schools close when it’s super cold outside. I’m talking unusually cold for your area.

A lot of people out here are praising this decision to close schools but there are some that are really gripping about it. The “I have to work so they should go to school” arguments:rolleyes: But then there is this argument about the temps and how schools in the north don’t close. I’ll admit that one has me curious. So what say you. 😃
Currently I live in the south, but I was raised in a suburb of Detroit. What you post is correct, schools never close due to temprature. You just bundle up and walk to school, that’s it.
 
If the weather people issue a warning, or if the roads are closed, the schools will probably close…after all the children are bussed to the school, where a representative of the administration announces: “It is too cold for us to have school today; all teachers see that your students are safely on the buses after you take roll call”.
That way, you see, the state gets the report that the school is officially open, and the school district gets its state aid for the day.:rolleyes::rolleyes:

Only if the order comes from someplace higher than the local district (or if the furnace is not working…which happens), will the message go out that there is no school.
For this resaon,weathermen in nearby cities are usually extremely diligent about declaring a weathjer emergency.

My mom was a teacher, & she used to tell me to “just stay in bed, I’ll be home as soon as I count the seniors” when the temps were super-cold. (I know of teachers, including Mama, who have had to be treated for frostbite and/or hypothermia due to this kind of :mad:nonsense).
 
I’m in Ontario - it gets as cold as -50C with the wind, and our schools stay open. We get maybe 1 - 2 snow days a year, from either lots of snow (in the 20+cm range) or freezing rain. Lol, no wonder it’s been rumoured that we all live in igloos!!
 
I’m in SE Wisconsin and we have closings for severe weather including extreme low temps. It seems that if the temp before wind chill is 5 degrees or below, it’s a safe bet there will be no school. Last winter we had I think 3 days off for temp and 2 or 3 for snow conditions. Today is potentially one of those days.

When I loved in far NE Pennsylvania, we had a bunch of snow days and delays for snow, and a few for temp too but not as many.

Growing up in Chicago, snow days were rare. Chicago knows how to deal with snow. We did have low temp days though.
Wow. I’m also from Wisconsin, but -25 is the standard. If -5 was the cutoff, school would’ve been closed quite a lot lately.
 
Wow. I’m also from Wisconsin, but -25 is the standard. If -5 was the cutoff, school would’ve been closed quite a lot lately.
I’m actually not sure that’s the standard, it’s just what I’ve observed, but that is with an additional wind chill bringing it well below zero too. If it was just 5 and no wind, then for sure school would be in.
 
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