We all know what a snow day is, but some may not know what the county does when the day of snow arrives. Here is a step-by-step procedure of what the county must do in order to declare a snow day. Step one, the county checks the weather outside around 3:00 A.M. and then determines the condition of the roads for bus travel. Step two, they make a decision and notify bus drivers by 5:00 A.M. if it is a snow day. Once this occurs, they notify all of the local radio and news channels about their closing or delay.

As some know, here in Howard County there are five built in days at the end of the year in case we have snow days. Once a snow day happens, the days get tacked on to the end of the year until all five “inclement days,” as they’re called, are filled up. After those days are filled, there’s no telling what will happen. Holidays could be taken off, Spring breaks could be cancelled—the possibilities are endless. In other words more than five snow days means more days of school. Even though five days seems like enough to cover the fluctuating Maryland weather, the state has seen had its fair share of heavy, devastating snowstorms.

Only 14 years ago, the biggest recorded snowstorm in Maryland history occurred, 40 inches of snow in January of 1995, and then, there’s the unrecorded amount of snowfall that happened in 1992. It’s assumed that Maryland got about 42 inches of snow in December that year alone. Though the 1992 snowfall was unrecorded, it still occurred during this very early winter month, and there is no telling how much more snow Maryland could get in future years. Another turbulent storm and more recent, the Blizzard of 1996 gave Maryland 17-21 inches of snow and ice. More built in snow days would be a big help to prevent shortened Holidays and, not to mention, costly energy bills, and emergency snow days, scheduled in advance, would also help prevent this.

Even closer to the future, the snowfall that left us out of school for at least two weeks in 2003. We need more built in days to be prepared for situations like that snowstorm, which can occur unpredictably at anytime and keep us out of school for weeks. We need more snow days and built in days or else we will be looking at longer school years, and that is something I’m sure no one wants.

Posted on 2009-12-17