Snow Day Predictor for Madison, WI

Madison is a large city of about 280,305 people that sits across the northern mid-latitudes, near 43.1°N in Wisconsin. A winter here typically brings around 45 to 90 inches a winter. Arctic outbreaks and reliable lake-effect define the season. Because the town falls in the Upper Midwest climate region, our model's closure threshold for Madison is held to a high bar, because districts here are equipped for heavy winter weather and rarely cancel for routine snow.

The percentage at the top of this page isn't a static guess — it's rebuilt each night from Madison's own Open-Meteo forecast. The model reads seven signals from the overnight-into-morning window: total snowfall, whether any of it is timed for the 2–6 a.m. commute, freezing rain or sleet, the coldest air temperature, the wind chill, the peak wind, and how much snow is already on the ground. These districts rarely close for snow alone — extreme cold and wind chill (often −25°F or colder) cancel school as often as accumulation does. Delays lean on wind chill and untreated roads more than on inches.

Because a 2-hour delay clears a lower bar than an outright cancellation, you'll often see delay odds for Madison even when the closure odds stay modest — that gap is the model flagging a borderline morning. The estimate shifts as the forecast firms up overnight, so it's worth re-checking Madison's odds the evening before school. Treat it as a well-informed second opinion for planning, never as an official Wisconsin closing announcement.