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State Wind Chill Hub

Wind Chill in Idaho

Idaho gets 42 inches of snow per year — but not every storm closes school. Live snow day probability for 9 Idaho cities, calibrated to local closure thresholds.

Idaho Winter Profile

Idaho has one of the most snow-hardened school cultures in the country. Across the 9 Idaho cities covered by SnowSense™, average annual snowfall is 42 inches, with Ketchum receiving up to 120 inches in a typical winter. Despite that volume, Idaho districts close school less often than mid-Atlantic districts do — kids, buses, and roads here are built for winter.

What closes Idaho schools isn't snow accumulation — it's wind chill, ice, or infrastructure failure. Sustained wind chills below −30°F trigger safety-driven cold-day cancellations under most Idaho districts' protocols. A foot of powder, by contrast, is usually just Tuesday.

The city links above show live snow day probability for every covered Idaho city. SnowSense™ weighs wind-chill risk separately from accumulation for Idaho, so a frigid-but-clear day can still register a probability spike when accumulation-only models would show zero.

42"
Avg Snow/Year
9
Cities
Common
Cold-Day Risk

Cold-Day School Closures in Idaho

Schools in Idaho typically close for cold alone when wind chills drop below dangerous thresholds. The exact threshold varies by district — urban districts with walking students tend to close at warmer wind chills than rural districts where all students ride buses.

-20°F
Common threshold
-30°F
Northern states

Idaho Cities — Live Wind Chill