Lisa – Abhilash – Pexels

We have all at least once woken up early on a school day, looked outside, and seen nothing but a thick mist that seems to block everything out. This is certainly enough to warrant a 2-hour delay, but you never receive the call. This raises the question of whether we should do something about fog. Fog is measured by visibility by machines at all weather stations called transmissometers. These machines emit light so that one can see how far it travels and is visible. Another thing these machines can do is calculate the water droplet density by getting a more precise calculation of visibility. 

Meteorologists, along with these machines, can tell the type of fog it is based on the weather over the past couple of days. So, with this technology, we should be able to call these 2-hour delays off with a good guess the day before. This not only saves people the rush of trying to figure out where to take their kids somewhere in the morning if they work, but also lets students know the night before, giving them more time to sleep. Another thing is what if the fog is not as expected? Which is certainly possible. Meteorologists say that fog is one of, if not the hardest, weather conditions to predict. 

This should not be a problem because we are not limited to 2-hour delays. It would be the same thing when the weather forecaster predicts four feet of snow that afternoon, so your school does a half day, and it snows an inch. The only main thing you lose from a 2-hour delay is the 2 hours of educational time. But, in my opinion, this is worth it rather than risking the lives and well-being of students who could be negatively affected by an accident due to the fog. 

So, I say that as a state, we should set a legal limit of visibility, and if that limit is reached or predicted to be at that limit, call the 2-hour delay and not risk it. A limit could be something like 200 feet, which is the state limit in California for buses.

If people think that this will lead to too much school being missed, offer another option. For those who are driving themselves, a tardy will not be given to that person if their parents feel it was not safe for them to drive, so this would eliminate the missed educational hours, but also keep students safe.