School districts across Missouri are closed today because of excessively cold weather.
Photo courtesy of Joplin Public Schools
After much of the state received one-to-three inches of snow on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, temperatures began to dive and continued to drop overnight Tuesday morning.
Wind chill values reached minus-10, and in some cases, minus-25. The only part of the state spared from the extreme weather has been the far southeastern portion and the Bootheel area.
The two big cities of St. Louis and Kansas City closed their school districts in response to the frigid temperatures, as did most of their suburban counterparts.
Kindergarten through twelfth grade classes were cancelled in Springfield and its surrounding area, as well as in Joplin, Columbia and Jefferson City. St. Joseph public schools north of Kansas City announced on its website that classes are cancelled “because of dangerously cold wind chills”.
Farther north in Bethany, where a wind chill warning was in effect, the South Harrison District chose to delay classes for two hours until 10 a.m. Many other districts that chose not to call off school also delayed opening until 10 a.m.
Temperatures are predicted to rise by only five or six-degrees across Missouri on Wednesday morning before a warm-up takes hold over the rest of the week. Districts have largely chosen to delay announcements on whether they’ll hold classes Wednesday.
The University of Missouri in Columbia held classes as scheduled Tuesday on the first day of the current semester.
