Snow Day Predictor Northwest TerritoriesWill school be cancelled tomorrow in Northwest Territories?

Type your Yellowknife postal code or "Yellowknife, Northwest Territories" into the predictor at the top of this page to see tomorrow’s probability for YK1. Full closures are rare even in extreme cold; YK1 more often runs modified operations — late starts, walking-only attendance, and indoor recess — when wind chill drops below roughly −45 °C or when ice fog reduces visibility along arterials.

Ice fog forms on the coldest Yellowknife mornings — typically below −35 °C — when vehicle exhaust and household furnace plumes condense into suspended ice crystals. Visibility along Franklin Avenue, Old Airport Road, and the school approaches can drop to a few metres. YK1 and YCS use ice-fog visibility as one of the main triggers for late starts and modified arrivals, separate from the temperature threshold itself.

The NWT operates eight Divisional Education Councils rather than the larger district boards common further south. Each DEC — Beaufort Delta, Tłı̨chǫ, Sahtu, Dehcho, South Slave, YK1, YCS, and the French-language CSFTNO — has its own elected council and makes its own operating decisions. Closures are coordinated within each DEC rather than across a province-wide consortium, which is why our forecast applies a single NT profile but returns community-specific probabilities.

Enter your Inuvik postal code or "Inuvik, Northwest Territories" above. Inuvik schools fall under the Beaufort Delta Education Council. Most closures are driven by Environment and Climate Change Canada blizzard warnings — sustained winds above 50 km/h with visibility below 400 m in blowing snow for several hours — rather than snowfall totals or cold alone. During polar night in December and early January, visibility-driven decisions matter more than at any other time of year.

Ice roads connect several NWT communities to the rest of the territory, including community winter crossings and longer routes like the Mackenzie Valley winter road. They become impassable during freeze-up in late October, breakup in April and May, and during major blizzards. While most students walk to school within their community, ice-road closures affect staff travel and supply logistics, and can force operational changes when teachers or principals cannot reach a community on a given day.

There is no single territorial cutoff. YK1 and YCS typically move to modified operations — no outdoor recess, walking-only attendance, late starts — when wind chill drops below roughly −45 °C, with full closures reserved for sustained values below −50 °C combined with poor visibility. DECs in the Beaufort Delta, Tłı̨chǫ, and Sahtu generally operate at lower wind-chill thresholds because most students walk and exposure times are shorter. Our forecast applies these operational realities through a single NT regional profile.

Yes. The Commission scolaire francophone des Territoires du Nord-Ouest (CSFTNO) operates French-language schools primarily in Yellowknife and Hay River, and its closure decisions typically align with YK1 in Yellowknife and the South Slave Divisional Education Council in Hay River on weather days. The predictor returns the same community-level probability for CSFTNO families as for the local public board.

Inuvik, Aklavik, Tuktoyaktuk, Paulatuk, and Sachs Harbour sit above the Arctic Circle, and the sun does not rise above the horizon for roughly a month centred on the December solstice. Schools operate through polar night on a normal calendar, but visibility-driven closures matter more during this period — a blizzard during polar night can blot out the sun for days at a time, and the Beaufort Delta Education Council weights blizzard warnings heavily in its operational decisions.

YK1 (Yellowknife Education District No. 1) operates the public schools in Yellowknife. Yellowknife Catholic Schools (YCS) is the separate Catholic authority in the same city. The two boards make their own operating decisions, but on extreme-cold and ice-fog days they typically align — when YK1 runs late starts or indoor recess, YCS usually does the same. Our predictor returns a single Yellowknife probability that applies to both, with the understanding that each board makes its own final call.