Snowstorms are times of both danger and excitement for the Belmont Hill community. While snowstorms pose the threat of icy road conditions, low visibility, and being trapped indoors, they also present the rare possibility of the Belmont Hill snow day (though these seem to be more common in recent years). Even the forecast of the slightest chance of precipitation in the winter can leave the entire campus abuzz with predictions and chatter. Crowds of students huddle over computers and smartphones to look at weather apps and the Snow Day Calculator or to refresh the Belmont Hill website for snow day announcements.
The question is, does the Belmont Hill website actually experience an uptick in traffic before snowstorms and snow days? The data suggests maybe. According to Google Trends, a website which analyzes search patterns on Google, over the last 90 days searches for the Belmont Hill School from Massachusetts peaked on December 9, 2017, and January 9, 2018, days which did not precede snow days. Over the past five years, however, winter months are shown to be periods of peak searches for Belmont Hill, potentially indicating a heightened alert for snow days. As the school undergoes a change in headmaster and thus snow day policy, it will be interesting to see how these patterns change. Hopefully, the student body can look forward to and will be on the lookout for more days off in future winters.
