The winter season is here, and Eureka College students try to cope with the cold on campus.
With the weather being unpredictable, sometimes it can be very important to stay on top of what is happening on campus. Eureka College uses RAVE alerts, which is a service that lets students, faculty, and staff know when the college campus is going to be closed or have the hours shortened due to the weather. Melody Crickman works at Eureka College and is the one who uploads the students, faculty, and staff into the RAVE system. She is also the one who usually sends out the alerts to everyone if the college has decided to close due to the weather.
According to Crickman, the Eureka College leadership team closely watches the weather reports from the National Weather Service. Then, the decision to close offices and cancel classes is made the evening before the anticipated bad weather. If this is not possible, the call will be made by 6:00am to allow enough time in advance for commuters so that they do not make the trek out to the campus. Eureka College will typically close if the windchill is -20 degrees, snow fall over two inches (this can vary), and/or ice and sleet forecasted. Once the leadership team makes a recommendation of closing the campus, the President provides the final approval.
After all this is taken into consideration, students, staff, and faculty will be notified and what to do for the day.
“I will send out the RAVE notices and will let the local TV and radio stations know if appropriate. The Office of Student Life lets students know via email about dining and professors send their students information about remote learning,” Crickman said.
If information needs to be updated or set up for RAVE alerts, it can be found on the Eureka College website under resources or through the RAVE Link.
Hannah Andrews is a student at Eureka College who is majoring in environmental science and minoring in art design and photography. She is originally from Dunlap, Illinois and commutes to campus from home each day. Winter is Andrews’ favorite season because she loves the snow and how beautiful it makes everything look. She has also been snowboarding since she was little. A fond memory that Andrews has from her childhood is playing around the creek in her backyard with her four other siblings. Although winter is Andrews’ favorite season, it can be difficult to keep up with Illinois and its constant changing of weather and temperature. Something that Andrews does at home to cope with the cold is to light her fireplace. One of her tips for walking around on campus on a cold day is to wear a warm coat, hat, and gloves. She recalls being surprised about snow on certain holidays.
“I’ve seen it snow here in Illinois on St. Patrick’s Day,” Andrews said.
However, she is not the only one who has witnessed unusual snow on a holiday.
Claire Wuethrich, another student from Eureka College, has some different opinions about winter. She is originally from Peoria, Illinois and lives on campus. Wuethrich is majoring in biology and minoring in chemistry. As a kid she used to love winter, but as she started driving and grew up, the love for winter degraded. Although this is true, Wuethrich has some fond memories of winter when she was a kid. Wuethrich remembers it snowing on Easter and picking up Easter eggs in the snow one year. She also remembers building snow forts with her dad and sister during the winter and going over to her aunt’s to go sledding. Wuethrich’s recommendation for staying warm on campus is to wear a coat, sweatpants, boots, and fuzzy socks.
“I really like shopping for sweaters and drinking hot chocolate. I specifically like Swiss Miss with the dehydrated marshmallows, and I put extra dehydrated marshmallows in there,” Wuethrich said.
It does not matter if people love winter or not, it can still be difficult to get through the cold season especially when walking around on campus all the time. It is important to think about how to dress according to the weather. Dressing in many lightweight layers is key to regulating the bodies temperature, and the layers will allow for taking some off to prevent overheating and sweating. Wearing mittens instead of gloves will help keep fingers warmer since the fingers will regulate heat better together than not. Also, wearing a winter scarf around the neck and mouth will also help reduce the amount of cold air being inhaled into the lungs. More tips on how to stay warm during the winter can be found Ready.Illinois.Gov.
Winter is a season that occurs every year in the Midwest, with there actually being two different kinds of winter: astronomical winter and meteorological winter. Astronomical winter is based on the Earth’s axis and rotation around the sun. So, this winter season started Saturday, December 21, 2024, and it will go through to Thursday, March 20, 2025. Meteorological winter is based on splitting the four seasons up among the months of the year and each season gets three months. So for winter, the season starts December 1st and ends February 28 (or 29 on leap years). It is split up this way to make it easier for meteorologists to observe and forecast the weather.
So, whether you like the cold or not, the winter season still has several more weeks until spring.
