Enter your city, ZIP code, or Canadian postal code below to check tonight’s snow day chance. Choose your school type, public, private, K–12, or college and university, since each closes under different conditions.Will School Be Closed Tomorrow? SnowDay Predictor and Calculator
How to Check Your Snow Day Chance
Type your location above and press the button. You will see a percentage, a plain sentence explaining what that number means tonight, and the specific weather factor driving it, whether that is snowfall, ice, or wind chill.
The most useful times to check are between about six and ten in the evening the night before, once the overnight forecast has mostly settled, and again early the next morning. Some districts, including Duluth Public Schools, publish a specific decision time, in Duluth's case around five in the morning, though this varies by district and is worth confirming with your own school. If you are checking for a college or university, select that option in the school type selector, since many higher education institutions set a higher bar for closing than a K to 12 district in the same city, though this varies by school.
As this season unfolds, we are logging each prediction against the outcome your district actually reports, so we can publish a real, dated accuracy record rather than only describing the model in general terms. That record will appear here once a full season of data is available, and we will keep it visible even in weeks where our predictions miss the mark. We think this matters because most tools in this space claim high accuracy without showing any evidence behind the claim. A published, ongoing record, including the misses, gives you something more useful than a general promise. Until that record exists, treat any result here as an informed estimate built from public weather data and general regional patterns, not as a settled fact about what your school will decide. Data as of September 18, 2026. Report an outcome to help grow this record.Our Track Record This Season
What Your Closure Risk Score Means
| Closure Risk Score | Likelihood | What to expect |
|---|---|---|
| 0 to 29 / 100 | Low | Schools likely open as normal |
| 30 to 59 / 100 | Moderate | Two-hour delay or early dismissal possible, keep a backup plan ready |
| 60 to 79 / 100 | High | Closure more likely than not, prepare childcare or remote work plans |
| 80 to 100 / 100 | Very high | Severe conditions expected, cancellation probable pending official word |
These ranges are a general guide based on how districts across the US and Canada have typically responded to similar conditions. They are not a fixed rule, since your specific district may run more cautiously or more conservatively than the regional pattern. If your result sits right at the edge of one of these ranges, checking again closer to morning is the best way to get a clearer picture before your district's own announcement.
Weather Factors Used in the Prediction
Our snow day calculator looks at expected snowfall, ice accumulation, minimum temperature, wind chill, wind speed, and the timing of the storm relative to your school's start time. Freezing rain is weighted heavily, since a thin layer of ice is often harder to manage safely than several inches of dry snow.
Storm timing matters as much as any single number. Snow or ice falling in the hours before the morning bell gives road crews far less time to treat and clear routes than the same amount falling the evening before, which is one reason two towns with nearly identical forecasts can end up with different results.
Some closures happen with clear skies and no snowfall at all. The National Weather Service and Environment Canada jointly built the modern wind chill chart in the early 2000s. At a wind chill of around negative nineteen degrees Fahrenheit, that chart shows exposed skin can freeze in approximately thirty minutes, and the risk increases rapidly as the wind chill falls further. This is why the calculator checks wind chill on its own, separate from snowfall, and can flag a likely closure even on a dry, clear morning.
Why Local District Behavior Matters
Identical snowfall can produce completely different decisions in two nearby districts. Road infrastructure, plow fleet size, driver experience with winter conditions, and each district's own risk tolerance all shape the outcome as much as the forecast itself.
Some districts publish their own specific thresholds, and these show how much variation exists even within one state. Minnesota's Anoka-Hennepin School District, the state's largest, says it will likely close when the National Weather Service issues an extreme cold warning indicating that exposed skin can become frostbitten in less than ten minutes, based on the district's own published cold weather policy. Duluth Public Schools, further north, sets its line at a sustained wind chill of negative forty degrees, or negative forty-five at its coldest point. Neither number applies automatically to the district next door, which is exactly why checking your specific location matters more than checking a general regional forecast.
This is also true near large bodies of water. Districts close to the Great Lakes or Georgian Bay in Southern Ontario can see one town receive far more snow than a town only a short drive away, because localized lake-effect snow bands are common in these areas. We cover these regional patterns in more depth in our guide to how much snow actually closes schools and our roundup of famous lake-effect snow events, both linked below.
SnowDayScore adjusts its model by region for exactly this reason, rather than applying one national number to every district. Over time, as more districts publish their own thresholds and we gather more real outcomes, we plan to add more named district examples like Anoka-Hennepin and Duluth above, rather than relying on broad regional averages that can obscure how different two nearby districts really are.
Accuracy and Limitations
SnowDayScore is designed to combine live public weather data with regional closure patterns, so it aims to give you more context than a basic weather app alone. It is not a guarantee, and no automated tool can replace the final decision made by a school superintendent, who may weigh factors a model cannot see, such as a last-minute road report or a bus driver shortage.Estimates are generally most useful between twelve and twenty-four hours before a possible closure, since forecast models have resolved more detail by that point. Checking three or four days ahead can still be useful as an early signal, but treat that result as a rough indication rather than a firm answer, since storm tracks and totals can shift significantly in the days before a storm arrives.
Results in the thirty to sixty percent range reflect genuine uncertainty rather than a flaw in the tool, since that is often the same close call your district itself is weighing at the same time. Lake-effect snow bands and fast-developing storms are two of the more common reasons a forecast can shift between the evening before and the morning of.
As this season unfolds, we are logging each prediction against the outcome your district actually reports, so we can publish a real, dated accuracy record rather than only describing the model in general terms. That record will appear here once a full season of data is available, and we will keep it visible even in weeks where our predictions miss the mark.
We think this matters because most tools in this space claim high accuracy without showing any evidence behind the claim. A published, ongoing record, including the misses, gives you something more useful than a general promise. Until that record exists, treat any result here as an informed estimate built from public weather data and general regional patterns, not as a settled fact about what your school will decide.
Methodology and Data Sources
Our snow day calculator draws on publicly available forecast data from agencies including the National Weather Service, NOAA, and Environment Canada, the same sources used by news stations and school transportation departments across the US and Canada.
We combine that live forecast with regional closure patterns rather than applying a single snowfall number everywhere. Each weather factor, snowfall, ice, wind chill, wind speed, and storm timing, is weighted differently in the final score, and freezing rain in particular carries more weight than an equivalent depth of dry snow, for the reasons explained above. Full technical detail on how these factors are weighted, in qualitative terms, is available on our methodology page.
We update the underlying model as we gather more real closure outcomes over time, rather than treating it as fixed once it launches. If a factor turns out to matter more or less than we initially expect, our methodology page will reflect that change along with the date it was made.
Frequently Asked Questions
Related Tools and Regional Guides
Your result above gives you tonight's answer. These guides go deeper into the reasoning behind it, and each one is written to stand on its own rather than repeat what is already covered here.
How much snow actually closes schools, region by region. A look at real district thresholds across different parts of the US and Canada, and why the same snowfall total means something different depending on where you live.
Snow day versus two-hour delay versus early dismissal versus virtual learning day. A plain explanation of the four ways a district typically responds to winter weather, and what tends to trigger each one.
How wind chill triggers school closures with no snowfall at all. Covers the cold weather thresholds several districts publish, and why frostbite risk at the bus stop can matter more than the forecast on the ground.
Why ice and freezing rain often close more schools than heavy snow. Explains why a thin coating of ice is frequently harder for road crews to manage than a foot of dry powder.
State and province closure guides. Detailed pages for individual states and provinces, including named district policies where they are publicly available.
Famous lake-effect snow events across the Great Lakes and Southern Ontario. Real, documented storms, including how localized these events can be from one town to the next.
Virtual and e-learning day policies by state and province. How remote learning days work, including how many a district is typically allowed to use in a school year.
Manual snow day calculator. Enter your own snowfall, ice, temperature, and timing to test a specific scenario, useful for colleges and universities that set their own thresholds.
Take the snow day knowledge quiz. See how your instincts about school closures compare to what actually drives the decision.