School Delay Prediction For Wednesday 09/24/2025
- Jonah Drake (Owner & Co-Founder)
- Sep 23
- 3 min read
Updated: Oct 2
Day 1 School Delay Prediction Results
Forecast Valid: Wednesday, September 24, 2025
Forecast Issued: Tuesday, September 23, 2025, 6:00 PM EDT
Forecast Update Issued: Tuesday, September 23, 2025, 9:19 PM EDT
Forecast Results Published: Friday, September 26, 2025, 6:11 PM EDT
As noted in the forecast discussion from Tuesday evening, despite the updated forecast that expanded the 10% risk area, some questions remained as to the exact areas that could have seen fog that would be dense enough, widespread enough, and persistent enough to prompt delayed starts to the school day on Wednesday. This eventually came to fruition as enough fog did not develop to cause any school delays across our area on Wednesday morning. We must continue to note in these fog forecast results: Fog is difficult to forecast, and despite our best efforts, it is important to remember that said scale does max out at 40% for a reason, and that we really reserve those still low 40% chances for events with much higher forecast confidence and that is because of those little variables that can drastically change the result of a fog forecast. So, when we use a 10% delination, it really is showing that the overall chances for delays, despite how high our confidence in that 10%, is still just that... 10%, which is a very low probability.
9:19 PM Update:
Issued: Tuesday, September 23, 2025, 9:19 PM EDT
Forecast Graphic: Jonah Drake
Forecast Discussion: Jonah Drake
Summary:
Have expanded the >10% risk delineation to include areas generally along and east of the US-131 corridor, expanding slightly further west with southward extent into parts of Allegan, Van Buren, Cass, and far Southeast Berrien Counties. Discussion: Model guidance and recent forecast discussions continue to suggest that scattered to widespread fog and patchy areas of dense fog are possible across much of the area, especially from Kalamazoo to Battle Creek to Lansing, but confidence in widespread and long-lived dense fog remains on the lower end of the scale. Still would not entirely rule out a few isolated to widely-scattered school delays Wednesday morning in the green-shaded areas.
See previous discussion below for additional information. Graphical Forecast:
Day 1 School Delay Prediction
Valid: Wednesday, September 24, 2025
Issued: Tuesday, September 23, 2025, 6:00 PM EDT
Forecast Graphic: Jonah Drake
Forecast Discussion: Jonah Drake
Summary: Widespread areas of fog will likely develop across much of the area overnight tonight into Wednesday morning. Some areas will see locally dense fog develop.
Discussion:
Fog, with the potential for some areas of dense fog, is expected overnight tonight, especially along the US-127 corridor and in areas that received heavier rainfall today. Current computer weather model guidance suggests that a swath of fog and dense fog will develop across areas generally east of a line extending from near Cadillac to near Ionia to near Sturgis. Fog in these areas will likely reduce visibility to under 1 mile and could reduce visibility even further to as low as less than 0.25 miles in some localized areas.
We do feel that at least some risk for school delays exists elsewhere, as well, really across our entire area, but confidence in any one district being affected at this point is rather low hence the reason we have opted not to highlight any risk areas beyond the aforementioned zone along the US-127 corridor. Consideration was given to an upgrade to a higher fog-based threat index level (4/6) and associated probabilities (>40%) for delays; however, some questions remain as to the exact areas that will see fog that will be dense enough, widespread enough, and persistent enough to prompt delayed starts to the school day. These questions reduce confidence and preclude the introduction of a higher risk category at this time, though upgrades may become necessary in future outlook updates should computer weather model guidance and forecast products from the area National Weather Service offices suggest that the threat of dense fog may be a bit more widespread. A decision on any such upgrades and/or westward expansion of the current risk area will be made by 10:00 PM this evening. Graphical Forecast:
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