Frequently Asked Questions
Welcome to the Snow Day Predictor FAQ’s page. This covers how the tool works, what goes into a prediction, and what your percentage actually means.
The Snow Day Predictor reads live weather data for your location and scores five conditions: snowfall, temperature, wind speed, wind chill, and storm conditions. Enter your city, ZIP code, or Canadian postal code on the main tool and you get a probability in about two seconds.
Below, we’ve answered the most common questions users ask about our Snow Day Predictor. These questions are meant to help you plan ahead during winter storms while reminding users that final school closure decisions are always made by local school districts.
You enter your city name, ZIP code, or Canadian postal code, and the tool pulls the latest forecast from Open-Meteo. It scores five conditions: snowfall accumulation, temperature, wind speed, wind chill, and storm condition codes. Each carries its own weight. The combined score produces a single percentage from 0% to 99% for the following morning.
Five, pulled from live forecast data. Snowfall carries the most weight at 35%. Temperature follows at 20%. Wind speed, wind chill, and storm condition codes contribute 15% each.
The total caps at 99%, because the final call belongs to your school district and not to weather data.
It reflects how severely the five factors combine at your location for the following morning.
Below 15% means conditions are clear. Between 15% and 39% means minor weather is possible but a closure is unlikely. Between 40% and 69% means it is genuinely uncertain and a delay is on the table. At 70% or above, significant winter weather is expected and a closure or delay announcement is the most probable outcome.
The decision belongs to your school district, not to weather data. Even in severe conditions the final call is theirs. That is why the score caps at 99%.
Every hour, automatically, through a scheduled pull of fresh Open-Meteo forecast data. A prediction checked at 8 PM reflects different conditions than one checked at midnight or 5 AM.
For the steadiest read on tomorrow morning, check once between 7 and 10 PM when overnight models have settled. Check again after 5 AM if you want confirmation from live conditions rather than a projection.
Only the location you type in, and only to fetch weather data for that area. No personal information is collected, stored, or shared. Once the prediction is returned, that location is not retained.
Try your ZIP code or postal code instead of the city name — they resolve location more precisely than a name that several states share.