I agree. Portland Public Schools called today off last night at 8:00 based on the forecast. I told my wife at the time we would get a dusting at most. We could have easily had school today here on the east side of the river. I'm lucky to work from home, so I only had my house-bound daughter under foot. I feel bad for parents who blew a vacation day/called in "sick" to stay home with the kids when we didn't even have enough snow for sledding or snowman building!

The weather people always seem to exaggerate the forecast to make it worse than it is. It's very rare for them to err on the side of optimism.

To be fair, what were the alternatives and likely consequences?

(1) Wait til morning? The issue was the afternoon weather being freezing rain and snow creating a layer of ice; the forecast was the same thing morning. The only difference would have been parents having even less time to make arrangements. Lots of places closed early today to avoid the risks; some making that call at noon.

(2) Not cancel at all. Weather turned out to be okay. But, if school was on, and the roads had turned to ice and few/no buses were running, you'd have hundreds (thousands) of children stuck at schools. You'd have parents upset and angry. And, in a worse case scenario, you have a child injured in an ice-related vehicle accident (whose parent(s) will immediately file a lawsuit against the school system).

The issue is conditions deteriorating and stranding either parent(s) at work (and child at home unsupervised) or children at school. In either case, it would be more prudent for the school to say "snow day." It forces the children's parent(s) to take responsibility for the child - whether that is time off, hiring a sitter, or pooling resources to ensure coverage.

The PPS opted for the more cautious option. Let's berate them for being cautious with child safety.

It wasn't just the schools though. I ventured out to shop, and two of the three stores I needed to go to were closed for the day. I finally got to my bank at 4:45pm, and they had already closed up early.

AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO WORKED TODAY? Oh ya right....I didn't work today either.

As the parent of an 8yr old I agree with the comment that we should be cautious about this. Having said that, I guarantee that PPS will be closed tomorrow even though the actual storm has passed. The great thing about Portland is the walkable neighborhoods and decent public transport (go by streetcar). 99% of the folks on the Eastside could have gotten to school today safely. For those that live in the Karlockian auto-paradises they could have decided for themselves that it was too dangerous. Get the buildings open and give us a choice. (Can you tell that I've been stuck with screaming girls all day?)

If you watch Channel 12 (for the weather, not the guns 'n diners), Mark Nelson actually had a fairly accurate forecast - warm and rain today, and the return to cold weather/snow late tonight or early tomorrow. Certainly plenty of time to get everyone home before it ices up.

I think the school districts took advantage of the opportunity to call off school days now and save money when people are more understanding instead of at the end of the year when their budgets run out.

I hope they don't try and sell this as the longest Arctic Blast in years. I was just out there walking and it seemed like a typical wet winter night in Portland. Okay, there was some snow but it was melting. Of course the next breaking-news Code Orange weather terror alert is for 4 a.m. tomorrow. They'll be a blast of cold air so strong we'll all flee to Siberia to warm up.

Maybe so. But please don't call it part of the same cold weather as the last 3 days, because tonight was a joke.

Hey, at least when I went to work today, the roads were not only clear of ice...for the most part, but more importantly the roads were clear of traffic. Good times.

Kaiser Permanente is the alarmist weather rogue of the day. They closed all facilities at 3 pm, except the Interstate urgent care which was open until a generous 6 pm. So when I was at the pharmacy trying to pick up a prescription at 1:00 pm (it was not ready...they asked me if I had called to find out if it was...sure, I called and was disconnected after 8 minutes on hold, then hung up after 17 minutes on hold) they didn't mention the chance of being closed later in the day. So anyone needing urgent care tonight needs to go to the ER. Ridiculous.

And the kids could definitely have been in school today. Anyone who was truly unable to travel could have kept their child home.

Brrrr? Nope, grrrrr...

Yep, yet again we get yanked around by our worthless weather forecasters. Get up this morning and it's all melted over night with no new snow and definitely no ice. How do these dummies keep their jobs? You would think with the technology they have they might be able to get it right but they don't do any better than they did 20 years ago. It costs a lot of people money, time and inconvenience when the weather forecasters predict disaster and yet nothing ever seems to happen that warrants the hysteria. Pathetic.

Amen! If I hear one more person talk about how bad the roads are I will scream. I posted a photo-tribute on my blog to the "arctic blast" from photos taken driving home from downtown yesterday after the "gigantic second wave."

For those of us from parts of the country where it actually does snow, it is absurd to see schools close for a light dusting and 34 degree weather. New Jersey, which is not exactly the artic, does not close schools with less the 6" of snow. It was funny for a little bit, but an entire week is embarrasing. Has Oregon ever heard that salt does wonders for melting ice?