At Greylock Snow Day, the forecast is for fun
This article first ran in The Berkshire Eagle.
WILLIAMSTOWN — Wind wailing, temperature at 4 degrees Fahrenheit, who is that puffy creature encased in layers, the only biped on Spring Street with a bounce to his step?
Why it's none other than Blair Dils, a name you may not recognize. But if you're a student, a teacher, a parent or a superintendent of schools in Berkshire County, you likely read the words he typed into his computer the day prior.
In the toasty comfort of his own home, his boots by the door, some fresh cut oats on the stove, he typed, "Thursday MegaStorm: It's On." Then, he sat back and felt good — very good — about the universe and his place within it.
Self-proclaimed (and self-trained) "snowday-ologist," he's the guy — that guy — the creator of the blog Greylock Snow Day. He's the guy that's been predicting the odds of school snow days, late starts and early dismissals (with 90 percent accuracy, according to him — and we'll go with it) since the blog's founding on a blustery day in 2010.
In the process, greylocksnowday.blogspot.com has had 1.2 million page views and its Facebook equivalent has nearly 3,000 dedicated followers.
Now here he is on Spring Street on Jan. 5, ducking into Tunnel City Coffee, where he unsheathes himself down to an identifiable man: Trim, fit, blood not entirely circulating properly just yet to his face and hands.
"It's wild out there," he declares with an ebullience typically reserved to successful first-time parachutists.
It's more than just wild out there. More importantly, more precisely, it's it's it's — a snow day!
"It's an honor. It's a big deal. It's a happy day!" Dils says.
We should get this out in the open: The entire staff of Greylock Snow Day (which entirely consists of Dils alone) lives for the thrill of that prerecorded phone message from the superintendent at 5:45 a.m. That is to say, the entire staff of Greylock Snow Day is unabashedly "pro-snow day."
And that's because, with Rosebud-level wistfulness, the entire staff fondly recalls his own youth when he'd fog up his wintry bedroom window in Hamden, Conn., wondering, wishing and praying for snow days. For the entire staff of Greylock Snow Day, a weather-induced day off from school represents nothing less than abrupt, agreeable, authorized consent to shift one's gaze from the linoleum-lined hallways of logic to the soft, vast horizon of leisure.
The origin story of Greylock Snow Day stars the boy Blair Dils, who would consecrate his snow days through the useful purpose of sledding, playing hockey on a nearby pond and raising a hot cup of cocoa to the wondrous good fortune of living in a benevolent world.
But even back then, Dils felt inclined to try to instill some order to the unknown.
"The downside of the snow day, as we all know, is its unpredictability," he says. "Should you do your homework or not? Should you study for that bio test or risk it? Work on that outside reading book or throw caution to the wind?"
Beginning in grammar school, around the time of the vicious (yet "really awesome") Storm of '78, he took a stab at engaging such vexing questions with level-headed detachment. Namely, he and his buddy Jon Levy would make friendly wagers predicting the magnitude of upcoming storms and the chances of snow days. They continued this through high school.
Levy is decidedly out of the snow-predicting business, having recoiled to the cosseted climate of Georgia. But for Dils, snow day prediction has grown to proportions "larger than a side project," "more than a hobby" and, considering the people now counting on him, "kind of an obligation" at this point.
What we know as Greylock Snow Day began as mere chalk-rendered predictions on the upper corner of his blackboard at Mount Greylock Regional School, where he's been teaching English since 1998. Soon after going online, it became the go-to source for anyone with anything at stake regarding snow and ice and the customary functioning of civilized society in Berkshire County.
"If I suspect we might have some weather-related issues coming up, it's one of the first places I turn for information," says Patty Wallace, an English teacher at Pittsfield High School.
Wallace adds an interesting tidbit: "My superintendent's office sends emails to faculty as soon as he makes the decision, and the office then follows up with robocalls to all parents and teachers," she says. "But honestly, there are times I read on GSD that school in Pittsfield is canceled or delayed before I even get the notification from [Superintendent Jason 'Jake'] McCandless via email."
Hmmm. Very interesting.
The staff at Greylock Snow Day is a tad cagey when it comes to his pull with superintendents, only to say, "People think I have power that I don't have."
Still, there's no denying, Dils brings the forecasting skills to a county whose topography poses notorious challenges to weather diviners. He pores through maps and precipitation models from a series of sources from throughout the Northeast. When a storm is coming, you can expect a flurry of blog posts that are informative, well-crafted and ingeniously juvenile.
Blair condenses the information down to what he calls The True North Confidence Meter, which takes into account volume ("3 inches can be enough to cancel school some days, but generally speaking we're looking for 6-plus inches of the fluffy white stuff"); timing ("too early and the evil plows have their time to do their business; too late and we could be stuck sleeping in the gym with 600 of our closest friends"); ice ("ice is great for snow days"); and the, "X-factor," the psychology of each individual school superintendent ("a bad prediction on one storm can work against us for the next storm, and vice versa").
Science aside, the staff of Greylock Snow Day unabashedly endorses the time-honored, ritual overtures to Mother Nature, or Father Winter, or Sister Snowdrift to "conjure" snow days. That includes the hallowed tradition of wearing pajamas inside out the night before a potential snow day; placing a silver spoon under your pillow; opening the freezer and dancing the "Hokey Pokey;" and placing two cotton balls on the windowsill, just to name a few.
"Yes," Dils says, "we support those — highly."
Felix Carroll can be reached at felixcarroll5@gmail.com.
Why it's none other than Blair Dils, a name you may not recognize. But if you're a student, a teacher, a parent or a superintendent of schools in Berkshire County, you likely read the words he typed into his computer the day prior.
In the toasty comfort of his own home, his boots by the door, some fresh cut oats on the stove, he typed, "Thursday MegaStorm: It's On." Then, he sat back and felt good — very good — about the universe and his place within it.
Self-proclaimed (and self-trained) "snowday-ologist," he's the guy — that guy — the creator of the blog Greylock Snow Day. He's the guy that's been predicting the odds of school snow days, late starts and early dismissals (with 90 percent accuracy, according to him — and we'll go with it) since the blog's founding on a blustery day in 2010.
In the process, greylocksnowday.blogspot.com has had 1.2 million page views and its Facebook equivalent has nearly 3,000 dedicated followers.
Now here he is on Spring Street on Jan. 5, ducking into Tunnel City Coffee, where he unsheathes himself down to an identifiable man: Trim, fit, blood not entirely circulating properly just yet to his face and hands.
"It's wild out there," he declares with an ebullience typically reserved to successful first-time parachutists.
It's more than just wild out there. More importantly, more precisely, it's it's it's — a snow day!
"It's an honor. It's a big deal. It's a happy day!" Dils says.
We should get this out in the open: The entire staff of Greylock Snow Day (which entirely consists of Dils alone) lives for the thrill of that prerecorded phone message from the superintendent at 5:45 a.m. That is to say, the entire staff of Greylock Snow Day is unabashedly "pro-snow day."
And that's because, with Rosebud-level wistfulness, the entire staff fondly recalls his own youth when he'd fog up his wintry bedroom window in Hamden, Conn., wondering, wishing and praying for snow days. For the entire staff of Greylock Snow Day, a weather-induced day off from school represents nothing less than abrupt, agreeable, authorized consent to shift one's gaze from the linoleum-lined hallways of logic to the soft, vast horizon of leisure.
The origin story of Greylock Snow Day stars the boy Blair Dils, who would consecrate his snow days through the useful purpose of sledding, playing hockey on a nearby pond and raising a hot cup of cocoa to the wondrous good fortune of living in a benevolent world.
But even back then, Dils felt inclined to try to instill some order to the unknown.
"The downside of the snow day, as we all know, is its unpredictability," he says. "Should you do your homework or not? Should you study for that bio test or risk it? Work on that outside reading book or throw caution to the wind?"
Beginning in grammar school, around the time of the vicious (yet "really awesome") Storm of '78, he took a stab at engaging such vexing questions with level-headed detachment. Namely, he and his buddy Jon Levy would make friendly wagers predicting the magnitude of upcoming storms and the chances of snow days. They continued this through high school.
Levy is decidedly out of the snow-predicting business, having recoiled to the cosseted climate of Georgia. But for Dils, snow day prediction has grown to proportions "larger than a side project," "more than a hobby" and, considering the people now counting on him, "kind of an obligation" at this point.
What we know as Greylock Snow Day began as mere chalk-rendered predictions on the upper corner of his blackboard at Mount Greylock Regional School, where he's been teaching English since 1998. Soon after going online, it became the go-to source for anyone with anything at stake regarding snow and ice and the customary functioning of civilized society in Berkshire County.
"If I suspect we might have some weather-related issues coming up, it's one of the first places I turn for information," says Patty Wallace, an English teacher at Pittsfield High School.
Wallace adds an interesting tidbit: "My superintendent's office sends emails to faculty as soon as he makes the decision, and the office then follows up with robocalls to all parents and teachers," she says. "But honestly, there are times I read on GSD that school in Pittsfield is canceled or delayed before I even get the notification from [Superintendent Jason 'Jake'] McCandless via email."
Hmmm. Very interesting.
The staff at Greylock Snow Day is a tad cagey when it comes to his pull with superintendents, only to say, "People think I have power that I don't have."
Still, there's no denying, Dils brings the forecasting skills to a county whose topography poses notorious challenges to weather diviners. He pores through maps and precipitation models from a series of sources from throughout the Northeast. When a storm is coming, you can expect a flurry of blog posts that are informative, well-crafted and ingeniously juvenile.
Blair condenses the information down to what he calls The True North Confidence Meter, which takes into account volume ("3 inches can be enough to cancel school some days, but generally speaking we're looking for 6-plus inches of the fluffy white stuff"); timing ("too early and the evil plows have their time to do their business; too late and we could be stuck sleeping in the gym with 600 of our closest friends"); ice ("ice is great for snow days"); and the, "X-factor," the psychology of each individual school superintendent ("a bad prediction on one storm can work against us for the next storm, and vice versa").
Science aside, the staff of Greylock Snow Day unabashedly endorses the time-honored, ritual overtures to Mother Nature, or Father Winter, or Sister Snowdrift to "conjure" snow days. That includes the hallowed tradition of wearing pajamas inside out the night before a potential snow day; placing a silver spoon under your pillow; opening the freezer and dancing the "Hokey Pokey;" and placing two cotton balls on the windowsill, just to name a few.
"Yes," Dils says, "we support those — highly."
Felix Carroll can be reached at felixcarroll5@gmail.com.
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