I never did have the patience of sticking with Magikarp in the early going, lol... and Gyarados being double weak to Electric always was a bit of concern for me, since many of the folks I used to battle used them quite a bit. Trying to work with Magikarp is definitely a challenge, though. At least in SS you won't have to worry about any Electric-type gyms until you travel to Kanto.
Same here, though it seems to vary from town to town... sometimes every town around ours will shut down our schools, but ours will still be open. It was the polar opposite where I attended college... Down there, if snow so much as dusted the ground, campus shut down completely, That was nice :) I wish I was back there now, especially since our football team is currently 8-0 :)