Flurry watch: Why a little snow makes a deep impact in Tacoma | Opinion
As a kid in Tacoma, I spent this time of year looking for the telltale signs of the season.
I wasn’t listening for reindeer hooves or jingle bells. I was tracking which way the wind was blowing, how high the clouds were in the sky and how close to freezing it was outside.
The most thrilling thing that could arrive in December was snow. If the flakes started falling, the only thing left to wait for was the sound of the phone ringing in our house. A call from a certain friend meant school was cancelled. Both our moms taught at the school, and hers was supposed to call mine on the phone tree.
School was canceled with not much more than a flurry. Once I got word, I’d stare out the window and watch the cones of light from the streetlamps fill with swirling snowflakes.
This winter, school cancellations are looking unlikely, but not impossible. Currently, the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center forecasts a slightly colder and slightly wetter than usual winter.
It’s not hard to see why class sometimes gets called off. Tacomans can barely drive in the snow. We spin out, we collide and some of us even abandon our cars in roadways.
I’ve heard people scoff at this kind of driving, and it is a little silly that we live in the same county as a 14,000-foot glaciated peak and still can’t manage slippery roads. But snow comes to our hilly, sea-level town once, maybe twice a year. We’re not only out of practice, but most of our cars aren’t equipped to handle snow.
Some of us can afford utility vehicles with four-wheel drive, but many can’t. Winter tires are a good option, but also expensive and hard to justify buying in anticipation of hypothetical storms.
Once the snow comes, putting on chains or cables might make sense for a little while. But after the major roads get plowed, you only need traction to get in and out of residential areas. For most of your ride, you’d be grinding chains into pavement.
Snow socks are a newer, more affordable and light-weight option. These fabric-based tire covers can add a little extra traction, but they don’t match up to chains or cables.
One year we had a new principal at our school who came from a much colder state. My mom remembers him refusing to cancel school for the first snow of that year, until he saw parents spinning out as they tried to drive up the hill to the drop-off area.
As a parent now, I get to experience the inconvenience of a snow day. I love to see kids experience the wonder of playing in the snow. But it’s stressful and challenging to manage work and childcare, even as a parent who can often work from home. It’s obviously much harder for people who need to drive to work or lose wages.
Some schools have turned to remote learning as a way to help students avoid missing school days. This option won’t work for everyone, especially if younger kids don’t have a grown-up with time to get them logged in and focused. As it did during the pandemic, remote learning only solves part of the problem with snow days.
And unlike those times, there’s a perfectly legitimate alternate activity available to a lot of kids when there’s snow outside. However, there isn’t always snow outside when school gets called off for weather.
That’s because cancellations are often based on road conditions before dawn, when school buses would leave the garage. Sometimes the snow or ice is all but gone before elementary school kids would have had their first recess. It’s not ideal.
Maybe more affordable solutions like snow socks will help people get around. Maybe — and this is not a good thing — the next generation of Tacoma kids won’t get many snow days as the climate changes.
My school friend and I still talk when it snows. Now we can text, and send pictures of our own kids watching the snow fall.
