Snow Days

So, the phone rings this morning at 5:30am. Since the phone is located on the night stand on my wife's side of the bed I nudge her to "pick up the phone". Always an amusing thing to watch because it takes my lovely wife a minute or two to figure out which planet she's on after waking up. Next thing I know she's climbing over me to turn off the alarm clock (which is quietly minding its own business on my side of the bed). I gently redirect her to the still ringing phone on her side and she picks it up. No early morning seminary today is the message, huh? I walk to the window expecting to see either a howling blizzard or an ice coated wonderland, but all I see is an uneventful winter morning. The roads are clear and there's nary a cloud in the sky.

I wander downstairs to deliver the message to my teenage son that seminary is cancelled. He groans because he's already up and showered and then asks me the same question I'm still asking myself- "why"? Neither of us know but oh well, he was up already and needed to go early for Jazz band anyway so he'll stay up and do a little extra reading. 20 minutes later teenage daughter flies into the kitchen announcing that school's been cancelled for the day. She too is wondering why because she has already showered and dressed for the day.

And while this explains why seminary was cancelled, it still leaves unanswered the question of "why" anything is being cancelled. I mean really, its a manageable 28 degrees, nearly clear skies and completely driveable road conditions.

This isn't the first time school has been cancelled on a morning when there was no adverse weather going on. Seems our local school district has a fixation with predictive cancellations. Some people actually think there's a chance the weatherman will be right when he says "there's a huge storm barrelling down on us later on this morning". Don't mind bothering with the inconvenient truth that weathermen are only right 50% of the time and then only about 50% of what they predicted actually happens. So, for example, if a weatherman predicts freezing ice followed by snow starting at 11AM today, what that actually means is that it might not freeze at all, it might not snow at all, or all of the above might happen- tomorrow.

Just how this "predictive cancellation" wave got started in our district is a complete mystery to me. Sure I understand the need to keep country kids safe on their bus ride in from the boonies around town. Sure I understand that weather is a fickle creature and forecasts are more like "technology backed guesses". But come on people- being overly cautious is contagious and leads to a generation of people that are afraid of life's risks. And what sort of educational message are we sending here? That "the going might get rough today so we're all staying home (just in case)?" Yikes.


P.S. Well, its now several hours later and I have to partially concede that the weatherman guessed right this time. Yes, it did start snowing hard at around 12:30pm and now at 2:30pm the roads are getting pretty slick. However, this morning the storm was predicted to start as early as 10am and was to start with freezing rain. Like I said- 50% of the time weathermen are 50% right. Oh, and I still think its a good idea to check the driving conditions yourself and then decide if its safe to drive.