Wind Chill in Minnesota

Minnesota has one of the most snow-hardened school cultures in the country. Across the 15 Minnesota cities covered by SnowSense™, average annual snowfall is 55 inches, with Duluth receiving up to 86 inches in a typical winter. Despite that volume, Minnesota districts close school less often than mid-Atlantic districts do — kids, buses, and roads here are built for winter.

What closes Minnesota 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 Minnesota districts' protocols. A foot of powder, by contrast, is usually just Tuesday.

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

Schools in Minnesota 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.