Snowpocalypse? Not quite

Boston University students were treated Wednesday to a snow day &- sort of.

At 1:24 p.m., BU Office of Human Resources sent an email to students and staff announcing the closure of the Charles River Campus from 2 p.m. on, due to the predicted nor’easter storm. Shortly following the email, students also received text message alerts relaying the same message.

Some students said they did not feel BU needed to call off classes since the inclement weather did not seem to get much worse as the day went on.

“It’s surprising that we have a pre-emptive snow day,” said CAS sophomore Elenore Amari. “It’s hardly snowing outside, it’s more like raining.”

CAS freshman Adam Liesbeskind said he felt the same way.

“It was weird having a snow day because there is no snow, but it was relaxing because there was no stress since classes were canceled,” he said. “Besides, all other students on the East coast had snow days too.”

Forecasters predicted up to a foot of snow would fall in some spots across the Bay State, but it became clear as the afternoon wore on that the storm was not playing out as expected.

WHDH-TV Chief Meteorologist Pete Bouchard apologized for overestimating the storm’s severity to New Englanders in a Twitter post Wednesday night.

“Hey. We blew it, we’re sorry, no one’s laughing,” he said.

The decision to end the day at 2 p.m. was not made lightly, said BU spokesman Colin Riley.

“We factored in how many employees had to travel and where they had to travel to,” he said. “Given all of that information, we made the decision with the well-being and safety of everyone in mind.”

The storm would affect anyone traveling from BU to Rhode Island, Connecticut or western and central Massachusetts, and was a prudent decision, he said.

Riley said it was a straightforward decision to cut the day short after the City of Boston declared a snow emergency for the entire day.

However, the City of Boston later updated the warning on its website at 5 p.m. Wednesday, saying the earlier warning was officially over.

“The snow emergency and parking ban that were in effect starting at 8 a.m. today will officially end at 6 p.m.,” the website said.

The City of Boston issued warnings as early as Tuesday night to tell drivers that their cars parked on the street may be in the way of snow plows.

Parking tickets issued for snow violations on Wednesday will be forgiven, the mayor’s office announced.

After announcing classes would be suspended, students all over campus talked about what they would do with the spare time.

CAS freshman Samantha Lewis said she did not mind the cancellation and had plans to rest.

“It’s nice to get a break from classes,” she said. “I’ll be able to catch up on sleep.”

CAS junior Morgan Piskarz said she hopes it continues to snow enough to cancel school for a full day on Thursday.

“We should get off school more often when it does snow because half of the time, there’s a foot of snow outside and we’re still forced to go to class,” she said.