About Us
Snow-Calculator.com is a free online tool designed to help students and families estimate the likelihood of a school closure when winter weather is approaching.
The idea behind the site is simple: snowfall alone does not determine whether schools close. Ice, storm timing, wind, visibility, extreme cold, local conditions, and school district behavior can all affect the outcome. Snow Calculator brings several of these factors together and presents them as an easy-to-understand probability.
The calculator is intended as a planning tool. It does not replace official weather information or school district announcements.
Who Built Snow Calculator?
I’m Tayyab Ali, the founder and developer of Snow-Calculator.com.
I built and maintain the website and developed the snow day prediction tool used on the homepage. Snow-Calculator.com is independently operated and is not affiliated with a school district, NOAA, the National Weather Service, Open-Meteo, or another government weather organization.
I’m a web developer rather than a meteorologist or school administrator. My role is to build a useful tool that takes available weather forecast information and turns relevant winter-weather conditions into a simple school-closure estimate.
Being clear about that distinction is important to me. The calculator does not create its own official weather forecast, and it does not know what decision an individual school district will make.
Why I Created Snow-Calculator.com
Most people trying to predict a snow day naturally start with snowfall totals.
But the situation is often more complicated.
Four inches of snow ending around midnight may have a very different effect from four inches falling during the morning commute. A small amount of freezing rain can sometimes cause more disruption than several inches of ordinary snow. Communities that deal with snow every winter may also handle the same conditions very differently from areas where significant snowfall is uncommon.
I created Snow Calculator to bring these different factors together in one simple tool.
Instead of trying to give users a guaranteed yes-or-no answer, the calculator provides a probability that can help families understand whether the upcoming weather appears more or less favorable for a possible school closure.
How the Calculator Works
Snow Calculator retrieves location-based forecast information through Open-Meteo and evaluates several winter-weather conditions that can influence school disruption.
The current calculation considers seven main factors:
- snowfall;
- ice risk;
- wind chill;
- storm timing;
- wind;
- visibility;
- selected school district policy.
These factors are weighted and combined to produce the percentage shown by the calculator.
The percentage should be understood as a weather-based estimate, not as a guarantee or official closure announcement.
If you want to understand what different percentages mean, read our Snow Day Probability Explained guide.
Why the Calculator Cannot Guarantee a Snow Day
Weather is only part of a school district’s decision.
Local officials may have information that an online calculator cannot access, including current bus-route conditions, road-treatment progress, power or heating problems, staffing issues, and conditions around individual school buildings.
Weather forecasts can also change as a storm approaches.
For these reasons, we do not claim that the calculator can predict every closure correctly or provide a guaranteed accuracy percentage.
You can read more about this on How Accurate Is the Snow Day Calculator?.
Our Approach
The goal of Snow-Calculator.com is to keep the tool useful, simple, and transparent.
That means explaining where the weather information comes from, being clear about what the calculator does and does not know, and avoiding claims that cannot be properly supported.
The site also includes educational guides covering winter forecasts, school closure decisions, snow-day probability, and other questions users may have while following an approaching winter storm.
The calculator will continue to be reviewed and improved as I identify ways to make its predictions and user experience more useful.
Always Check Official Information
Snow Calculator should be used for planning and curiosity before an official school decision is announced.
For severe winter weather, follow official weather alerts and local safety guidance. For school closures and delays, your school district’s website, notification system, or other official communication should always be considered the final source.
You can check the current weather-based estimate for your location using the Snow Day Calculator.
Contact
If you notice an error, have a question about the test, or believe something on the site needs clarification, you can reach me through the Contact Us page.