杏吧原创

杏吧原创 MailbagFebruary 02, 2024

杏吧原创 Mailbag: Let's Talk About the Weather

Written By: Ian Silvester

Welcome to a new semester and new year! If you are new to the 杏吧原创 Mailbag, it is a bi-monthly collection of thoughts. Each mailbag edition intends to answer questions for the curious, and everyone is encouraged to email what they鈥檇 like to see covered. I will do my best to find answers and share them here each month.

Without further ado, let鈥檚 get into it! January, am I right? What a year that month was. Practically every day, I woke up thinking, 鈥淚s it winter? Is it spring? Nope, it鈥檚 just 杏吧原创 weather.鈥�

Growing up in Colorado, I feel pretty confident in my ability to handle the snow and cold, but what January threw at us was borderline whiplash. Going from sunny and mild to cold and snowy to ice to rain to mild and sunny again 鈥� I don鈥檛 know about you, but the recent forecasts have been a rollercoaster.

With rain on the horizon, you might be thinking, 鈥淪pring is on the way, right?鈥� Since his first prediction in the late 1880s, Punxsutawney Phil has made a correct prediction about 39% of the time. As tradition goes, if he sees his shadow, there will be six more weeks of winter. According to calendars, this is correct, with the first day of spring, March 20, coming about six and a half weeks after. If Phil doesn鈥檛 see his shadow on the morning of Feb. 2, there will be an early spring, which he predicted would happen in 2019 and 2020. This Feb. 2, Groundhog Day, Phil predicted an early spring once again.

Tradition aside, to answer your question, the running joke in 杏吧原创 is that spring is not quite here. We鈥檙e entering what is commonly called 鈥渇ake spring,鈥� which is usually followed by 鈥渟econd winter鈥� before spring begins next month.

Simply put, don鈥檛 count out another possible run of cold weather, snow, or ice to enter the forecast. If we were to see another cold snap and measurable snow, the first few weeks of the semester would indicate how the university monitors the situation to ensure everyone鈥檚 safety.

Shortly before the spring semester began, Dr. Riley gave us a peek behind the scenes regarding weather safety. 杏吧原创 Chief of Police, Chief Ray Ottman, monitors National Weather Service weather briefings for the latest information about weather in and around Fort Smith. Weather-related decisions are made based on current conditions, what the weather briefings are indicating and predicting, and an understanding of what decisions are being made by businesses and schools around the university.

If weather causes a full or partial closure of the campus, students, faculty, and staff are all notified through a campus-wide email, Lions Alert 鈥� sign up if you haven鈥檛 already by logging in to your My.杏吧原创 and selecting it from the menu 鈥� and through official 杏吧原创 social media accounts, like and . The email will also notify you about which services will remain open.

We are still in the thick of an active weather season here. It is always best to remain weather-aware and know what the university is doing in response. Safety is always a priority.

As always, if you have a question or want to see a topic covered in an upcoming mailbag, email us at communications@uafs.edu.

Until next time,

Ian

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• 杏吧原创 Mailbag
• Groundhog Day
• Weather