Lisa's Snow Day VIEWPOINT!

It used to be that school wouldn't be canceled until the morning, but that was when most mothers were stay-at-home moms, so childcare wasn't the issue it is now. Since then, women have more choices, thankfully. But the powers that be never adjusted to address the child care issue. Schools have absorbed so much of what used to be done at home - for better or for worse; it is not for me to say - creating problems when schools close on short notice. With the advent of technology, the public push to have as much notice as possible about snow days is on.

Meteorologists, meanwhile, are doing the best they can with the predictive models they have. Climate change is real. But those models are born out of meteorological history and science. They can only work from what has been; their job is to FOREcast (predict) based on history. They are not in the betting business (though I'm sure there's an over/under out there for storms). It's not their fault that the world is on fire. It's also not their fault that people clamor to know as soon as possible if the school will be canceled so families can make arrangements.

The real problem is complicated. We as a country have to prioritize child care, NOT by putting more onto schools. It's a systemic problem. I'm generally a solutions-oriented person. But I don't have one here. I'd love to say workplaces must allow for last-minute cancellations and accommodate families. But what do you do about the jobs where that can't happen? If we had better solutions, people might not be griping about the meteorologists "getting it wrong." If we had systems where we could wait like we used to, nearly all of us would be in school right now, and today, at least, there wouldn't be an issue. And when we DO get a storm, better systems would be in place. That's not where we are right now. We have to figure out how to get there.