School Closing Prediction for Tuesday 12/02/2025
- Jacob Melton
- 5 days ago
- 2 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
Day 1 School Closing Prediction Results
Forecast Valid: Tuesday, December 2, 2025
Forecast Issued: Monday, December 1, 2025, 4:30 PM EST
Forecasters: Jonah Drake and Jacob Melton
Forecast Results Published: Tuesday, November 2, 2025, 3:53 PM EST
Our snow day outlook verified fairly well this morning with more than a dozen closures reported across our "Very High" and "High" risk zones.
Unexpectedly, we did have several schools near Mount Pleasant delay because of fog this morning. Something that was not modeled very well on our computer weather models, and something that frankly, we were not expecting, so we apologize that we missed that.
We also had several schools close in Hillsdale County due to continuing secondary road concerns from this weekend's storm system, so apologies for missing that as well. Post-storm roadway conditions are something that is very difficult to forecast accurately, and we simply believed that by this morning, with Hillsdale County only having received 5-8 inches of snow, that roads would be in much better shape 48 hours later.
Day 1 School Closing Prediction
Forecast Valid: Tuesday, December 2, 2025
Forecast Issued: Monday, December 1, 2025, 4:30 PM EST
Forecasters: Jonah Drake and Jacob Melton
Summary:
Heavy lake-effect snow is expected tonight into tomorrow morning, resulting in dangerous travel conditions near the Lake Michigan shoreline, especially near and north of Grand Haven. School closings are very likely across this portion of West Michigan on Tuesday morning.
Discussion:
Heavy lake effect snow has begun impacting the area earlier this afternoon, especially across northern Ottawa and southern Muskegon counties, as of the time of writing. This band will continue to impact areas along and near the lakeshore, especially from Grand Haven and points northward tonight into tomorrow morning.
Latest computer model guidance continues to support the potential of a localized area of snow accumulations greater than 12 inches tonight into Tuesday morning, especially if the lake effect snow band stalls in any certain location this evening into tonight. These totals, combined with the timing and snowfall rates expected (1-2”/hr snowfall rates or higher), are certainly expected to make travel dangerous if not impossible in localized spots. This is the primary threat factor in this outlook, with the threat index for snow maxed out at level 6/6.
Current guidance suggests the best chance of these occurring will be across portions of Muskegon and Ottawa counties, and therefore, that is where we have placed a very high (>91%) probability of closures. A high (71-90%) probability of school closures surrounds the very high probability, including the majority of Oceana and Muskegon counties, along with the northwestern portions of Ottawa County around Grand Haven.
Once you get outside of the very high and high probability zones, you will notice probabilities start to drop off quickly with eastward extent. This lake-effect snow event is expected to impact a localized area, and while we do expect some system snow tonight elsewhere across West Michigan, accumulations from the system snowfall are not expected to be impactful enough to create a need for school closures or delays Tuesday morning elsewhere across West Michigan.
Graphical Forecast:
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