As a kid, there’s not much that’s more magical, aside from Santa Claus, than a day off from school for a snow day.
The moment the announcement is made that school is closed due to a snow day, the excitement is palpable. It’s a burst of pure joy and anticipation, especially for kids in the South. After all, snow days are rare — maybe once or twice during a whole school career — so when the chance arrives, it’s all hands on deck to make it happen.
When Winter Storm Cora was approaching, Katherine Funke and her first-grade class at Crabapple Crossing Elementary, located just north of Atlanta, decided to band together to help Mother Nature.
“A lot of the kids have never experienced snow because we live in Georgia, and so the only time they’ve experienced snow is if they traveled somewhere,” explained Funke.
So she decided to share some wintertime superstitions with her class, the same ones her third-grade teacher shared when she was a child.
“Go home and tell your parents that you need to wear your pajamas inside out, flush ice cubes, and maybe it’ll snow,” she told them.
She said their eyes got so wide and their mouths dropped as they asked if she was joking. But they promised to do these simple little tasks because there would be nothing worse than waking up on a snow day with no snow – and it worked!
Even though confidence for snow north of Atlanta was high among forecasters, these 6- and 7-year-olds woke up thinking they had a hand in their magical day.
Most popular wintertime superstitions to make your wish for snow come true:
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Wear your pajamas inside out and backward
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Flush ice cubes down the toilet
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Sleep with a spoon under your pillow
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Place a white crayon on all the windowsills
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Eat ice cream the night before
But these wintertime superstitions are nothing new. It’s believed that ancient cultures performed dances and superstitions in hopes of controlling the weather during times of drought and other instances when they hoped for a change.
The tradition has been passed down through generations and is now cherished by children who hope and pray for snow, convinced they can play a part in summoning a blanket of winter’s magic.
I’m not sure if this proves how little faith they have in meteorologists, or just how badly they want snow. But for Funke’s first-grade class, they now feel like they hold some of the power to make it snow.
“When we came back on Monday, we all sat together and had a conversation about what they all did, and they were super excited to tell me that they did all the superstitions and it worked because it snowed,” said Funke.
Jennifer Gray is a weather and climate writer for weather.com. She has been covering some of the world’s biggest weather and climate stories for the last two decades.