Portland Public Schools, Beaverton School District

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When meteorologists announce something wicked this way comes, they're not staring into a boiling cauldron of witch hazel, cat hairs and snake skins. Despite some TV weathercasters' emphasis on good cheer, bad jokes and sharp suits, science also plays a role in predicting the weather.

Too bad science and politics have never been the best bedfellows.

Phil Volker, the former TV meteorologist who now contracts privately with this week's Rogues, Portland Public Schools and the Beaverton School District, told those clients and others Monday night, Jan. 15, to expect a "modest snow event" of one quarter to three quarters of an inch between 5 and 10 am the next morning. That put them and other area school districts on alert to start monitoring the storm's development even before the snow started falling hard.

But as 3 to 5 inches of snow started falling, Portland waited until 7:20 am and Beaverton administrators until 8:30 am to call off school, saying the storm caught them off guard. "This one caught everyone by surprise," Sarah Carlin Ames, spokeswoman for the Portland Public Schools, said last Tuesday.

Yet that statement comes up against an inconvenient truth: Volker upgraded the snowstorm's threat level at 3 am last Tuesday morning and made the call that 2 inches of snow would fall on the Portland area during that morning's commute, obliterating the claim that the snowfall was unexpected.

"It didn't catch me off guard, and it didn't catch my clients off guard," Volker says. "Ultimately, my clients make the decisions not just on forecasts but on road conditions."

Maureen Wheeler, spokeswoman for the Beaverton schools, echoed Ames' sentiment that the area's relatively heavy snowfall arrived unexpectedly last week, giving the Portland district some cover for its late call.

Consider that cover to have melted like last week's snowfall.

01.27.2007 at 05:54 Reply

Blaine T. Hanks

Very difficult to read this new, crunched font. Is there a good readon for it, or it it just a passing fad?

01.31.2007 at 07:23 Reply

Aaron Smith

Maybe the Willamette Week staff can offer consultation services to help PPS and BSD with the following

- maintaining/exceeding instructional time for students according to state and federal requirements

- meeting state and federal instructional content and performance requirements

- find a competent meteorologist who can predict snow events to exceed a "modest rating" with more than 3 hours notice

- find out how to orchestrate student transportation more effectively (oh yeah, Willamette Week doesn't have a bus system for its employees--that's Trimet's problem)

- find exactly how and why public schools (especially PPS and BSD) are constantly deemed irresponsible by local media, and then get direct instruction from those media sources on how to be competent.

- how to most efficiently determine THC levels and blood/alcohol contents of writers before they submit misinformed articles

02.02.2007 at 08:08 Reply

lasognatore

i like WW, but lately the "Rogues" have been pretty lame. How exactly does this constitute Rogueishness? I work for US Fish and Wildlife- that day, i called before i got to work to find out whether to go in- they said yes. So of course, as soon as i got off the Max and into the building, they were sending everybody home- and this was at 8:30- i didn't whine and complain. In fact, i was excited to have a day off. So what's the big deal? Were there angry parents? ooohh whine - boohoo. If they were really concerned, they should've made their own decision to keep their kid home.

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Portland Public Schools, Beaverton School District