The Fat Guy In The Back
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Sioux Falls, SD
Posts: 2,532
Bikes: '81 Panasonic Sport, '02 Giant Boulder SE, '08 Felt S32, '10 Diamondback Insight RS, '10 Windsor Clockwork, '15 Kestrel Evoke 3.0, '19 Salsa Mukluk
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Consecutive bicycle work commute number 875:
17F and snow falling this morning. We're supposed to get 8 inches total. I rode the old winter bike with the skinnier tires because they're also talking about a 50 mph headwind on the way home. I reasoned that between the wind and the snow, I may want to take the bus for part of the trip home. My fat bike tires won't fit into the bike rack on the bus, so I rode the old winter bike with studded tires.
They preemptively called off school in town, which is interesting. We have a new school administration and they're a lot more willing to cancel school for weather, even just forecasted weather. Because weather here is so unpredictable, the forecasts are frequently inaccurate. More than once since the new administration came in they've cancelled school based on the forecast, then the storm swings north or south and misses us, and the kids wind up sitting at home during a nice day.
For many, many decades we might cancel about once every other year, but it would take at least a foot on the ground before they would call off classes. If it wasn't snowing before school then they wouldn't cancel, and if it started snowing hard after the school day started they reasoned that the safest place for the children to be was inside the school building, so they wouldn't cancel then either. Growing up here from K-12th grade there were probably fewer than 10 times we didn't have school due to weather. That was far too seldom, so they needed to relax their policy a little. However, I think maybe the pendulum has swung a little too far the other way.