Just came to announce the U of M closing @scout59
I’ve now had 6 snow days as a college student - 4 at U of M, 2 at MSU. Neither school had had closings since the 70s until I was there.
Why do I still live in this state?!
Purdue just announced their closing.
I lived in Minn and needed to start a night course the first Monday of Jan. I’d been sick all weekend so not out and about. I awoke to the radio alarm saying ‘Good Morning, it is -29 and the wind chill is -59.’ I knew that if I went to that night class and left my car out for 4 hours it would never start. At work, we often went out at noon and ran our cars for 1/2 hour or so, plus there was a portable battery and a guy to jump your car if needed. I never went to the class.
My hometown in central Wis has closed schools for 4 days, opened the rec center as a warming shelter, and the university is closed from Tues @ 5 to noon on Thurs. That never happens. Students who live in dorms will still have to go out to eat in the cafeteria buildings, and I bet a number will still go to the gym, but no classes and the half of all student who commute will not have long walks from the parking lots to the classrooms.
I’ve convinced my daughter not to drive into the vortex. She’s driving to Florida from Wyoming (where -20 degrees is common), but has agreed to go through Texas.
@romanigypsyeyes I ask myself that question all the time. Sister got sick of WI weather and quickly moved to FL awhile back. Still very happy with her decision, and says the warmer weather helps her fibro a lot.
Every window and door is covered with thermal curtains. Every pipe running. LP man came at noon. Lots of power losses around here, which isn’t that typical. As long as the power and furnace stay on, hopefully we are good. Except for the trips to the barn…I have unreasonable worries about losing my way to/from the barn like those young kids did going home from school during that Minnesota blizzard in the late 1800s.
S’s school, UIUC, finally canceled classes for tomorrow. They are another large school that never closes. I’m glad they did the responsible thing. There has been a problem with overcrowded buses not stopping at scheduled stops because they were already full and many kids have to walk 20-25 minutes between classes if they can’t catch a bus.
@momofsenior1 - and thank goodness!!! @psychmomma - waiting outside has got to be one of the least safe things to do in that kind of cold. So happy the schools are beign responsible.
@romanigypsyeyes I was in A2 from 78-82 and never had a snow day. You must be good luck. I remember a -17 night that we just kept drinking coffee in Burger King (don’t remember how we ended up there) before getting up our nerve to go out in the cold to go home. Had miles to walk to the far end of South U.
Indiana University Bloomington just announced their closing.
Yep my son just let me know Michigan is closed… Bummer no engine fair tomorrow… Hope Michigan still plays and Beats Ohio State in basketball though
Our Director just closed our college for tomorrow. We just had a snow day yesterday. What gets me is that I work on those days, but I don’t get responses from people in other departments when I email them … must be nice not to work on a work day, folks. Have computer, can work!
@kelsmom, my H said the same thing. People could work from home but he never saw that they were actually on their computers working!
Happily, his unnecessary trip tomorrow was canceled. So I don’t have to worry about his 5 hour round trip drive. He says that our roads are slippery because it’s too cold for the salt to work.
@garland I’m not sure I’d call multiple polar vortexes “lucky” 
Mr R’s work has said they won’t close. He is 95% sure he’s calling it in if his clients don’t cancel first.
@Marilyn a friend from Columbus posted that video and said it was admins from the Columbus area.
It’s terrific!
It was much colder when I left work this afternoon than it had been this morning. I think the main difference was the very bitter wind. But the drive home was much quicker and less anxiety provoking. The roads were clear. And when I got home, I logged into my work email account and learned that my office will be closed tomorrow. I’m glad, even though I’m one of those folks who can and will work at home.
All the public schools in the St. Louis area are closed, but looks like WashU is still on for classes tomorrow. Not fun for the kid and his 9:00 class.
Headline from my local news.
You know the weather is bad when Michigan Tech closes!
@thumper1 , I don’t know how anyone could think it was admins from Columbus! They’re wearing district shirts! It’s the district superintendent and principal of the Michigan school district.
Where I live now, the temps are only going down to the 30’s, so no worries about frostbite. But I went to WUSTL (we called it Wash U back in the day), and I remember cold like this.
One night I was helping a friend with a project, along with another friend named Mary, and the temps kept dropping and dropping. It was a Saturday night and we were laughing, thinking of the people who might be out and about in that weather. It didn’t occur to us that eventually we’d have to go home too!
Mary offered me a ride home but the car wouldn’t start. It made the most hideous, pitiful sound. The 3 of us ran back inside to strategize. None of us wanted to stay there overnight so we decided to walk home (about 1/2 mile for me). It was 10 below with a wind chill way below that. And it was windy for the first part of that walk! We had to cross an enormous and empty parking lot. It was hard to breathe and almost impossible to talk. I had on 2 hats, leg warmers up to my hips, 2 sweaters under my coat, you get the picture. On my street, some car alarms were going off from the extreme cold. Yikes, stay safe everyone!
@deb922 - My Cedar Rapids, Iowa letter carrier nephew encouraged everyone to put a hold on their mail. This can be done online. If the mail is held, the carriers will do the organizing part of their job inside the nice warm post office, and not need to walk their routes. They’d rather carry extra mail in a couple of days after the hold ends, than do the neither-snow-nor-rain bit in these cold temps. It’s probably too late now to order a hold, but it is worth remembering when the next batch of foul weather comes along. Meanwhile, if its warm enough to go out, do your letter carrier a favor and make sure your walk is cleared.
Dh thought he was escaping the bad weather when he left for London yesterday. He texted me to say that they are getting snow/ice this week. Apparently they don’t know how to handle it there so he’s not sure how much work he will get accomplished.
Thankfully I’m in the mid-Atlantic so we aren’t getting the brutal temps like the Midwest. We are getting rain then snow tonight but our freezing temps aren’t anything worse than what we’ve had in years’ past. It was much colder last winter. School is delayed as the roads are supposed to freeze over tonight. My kids haven’t had a full week of school since 2019 started. Between snow days, holidays, teacher professional days and college visits, S19 has only been to school 11 days this month, and three of those days were half days/final exams.