Great Lakes school administrators are among those who hold out the longest before closing schools for snow, according to this map of how many inches trigger such an action.
Any snow – in fact, any prediction of snow – triggers closings in the south, according to mapmaker Alexandr Trubetskoy, who recently posted the map to Reddit.
That doesn’t necessarily mean administrators in the south are wimps. Areas without much snow also don’t have much snow removal equipment.
Trubetskoy identified himself as a high school student from Vienna, Va., in a Reddit message to Great Lakes Echo. He wrote that the reaction to the map has been widespread and positive. It has been posted in venues as diverse as iFunny and National Public Radio.
He works as a Russian translator, Trubetskoy wrote. Creating maps is a hobby. But he is considering turning it into a career after the nationwide reaction to this one.
Trubetskoy built the map from data provided by user responses and interpolated with other information from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Trubetskoy, who says he’ll continue to update the map, posted some information on Reddit after the intense response:
- The lightest green says “any snow” but also includes merely the prediction of snow. Also, this is snow accumulation over 24 hours/overnight.
- In much of the Midwest and Great Plains, school closing often depends more on wind chill and temperature than on snow accumulation (“cold days”). Thus, this map may be misleading in those areas.
- Many jurisdictions in California and other western states have significantly varied snowfall, depending on elevation. This makes it difficult to find an “average” number, or often makes it misleading.
- Urban areas like Chicago and New York have more resources to clear snow and often need more to cause closings.
- To everyone saying “I grew up in so-and-so and we never closed school,” policies have changed in the last 20 years to make closing a much more common occurrence. Just because schools stayed open back then doesn’t mean they do these days.
- Hawaii does get snow! Just… not where people live.
- Data was taken from hundreds of various points from user responses and interpolated using NOAA’s average annual snowfall days map. Any corrections/additions are welcome, just give a decently specific location.
