Iowa Highway Ends (etc.)

From schoolalerts.iowa.gov and TV stations. Many started with a two-hour delay and then announced closure later.

AGWSR, Aplington-Parkersburg, CAL, Chariton, Hampton-Dumont, Iowa Falls-Alden, Osage, PCM, Pleasantville, Riceville, Seymour, South Hardin, Wayne, West Fork.

Thirteen inches in Osage. Snow at Tulip Time for the first time in 78 years. Adventureland had to close. Snowblowers in Forest City. Record low highs in Waterloo and Des Moines. Thursday was the most snow ever received in Des Moines in one day or one month for May — until the overnight total is finalized. The Iowa DOT, like me, considers April 15 to be the end of winter and had to bring back the road conditions page.

This picture shouldn’t have a May 2 date-stamp. More reports here.

Let’s hope this week of weather is a real drought-buster.

Based on TV stations’ websites, there are multiple schools that cancelled classes today because of snow. Because this is historic, here’s a list of those I’ve seen: AGWSR, Algona, Audubon, Belmond-Klemme, Central Springs, Clarion-Goldfield, Clear Lake, Coon Rapids-Bayard, Dows, Eagle Grove, East Sac, Eldora-New Providence/Hubbard-Radcliffe, Forest City, Fort Dodge, Garner-Hayfield/Ventura, Glidden-Ralston, Griswold, Hampton-Dumont, Humboldt, IKM-Manning, Iowa Falls-Alden, Lake Mills, Manson NW Webster, Mason City, Newell-Fonda, North Iowa, Northeast Hamilton, Northwood-Kensett, Ogden, Osage, Panorama, Pocahontas Area/Pomeroy-Palmer, Riceville, Rudd-Rockford-Marble Rock, South Central Calhoun, South Hamilton, Southeast Webster-Grand, St. Ansgar, Stratford, Storm Lake, Titonka, Twin Rivers, Webster City, West Bend-Mallard, West Fork, West Hancock.

There also is a statewide website with listings. According to the alerts there, ENP and HR really intended on having school: “School is cancelled for South Hardin school and Hubbard-Radcliffe Elementary. Buses will be turned around and dropped back off at school.” Lake Mills admitted surrender: “Too much snow! LMCS closed today.”

Enjoy this, kids. It will be one of your weirdest snow days ever.

UPDATE: And now, schools farther east are dismissing early. List includes Aplington-Parkersburg, Clarksville, Dike-New Hartford, Grundy Center, Murray, Nashua-Plainfield, North Butler, Tripoli, Waverly-Shell Rock.

As population and school enrollments in rural Iowa keep shrinking, many districts are finding it increasing difficult to stay afloat. One place this change is keenly being felt is in north-central Iowa.

Rather than make this essay a blog post, I made an independent page about it. It will be in the “Key Posts” links on the sidebar for lack of a better place to put it, and I’ll try to keep this reference high on the blog for a while.