Yahoo Sports 2024 NFL season schedules: Weather extremes that will impact games
The NFL has released the schedules for the league’s 32 teams for the 2024-25 football season.
Games will be played in extreme heat, frigid cold and everything in between, and it all begins with the Kansas City Chiefs hosting the Baltimore Ravens at 8:20 p.m. ET on Thursday, Sept. 5.
If Mother Nature sticks to the typical playbook, fans already have a good sense of which games could be the coldest, warmest, windiest and even snowiest.
Here are the seven games to watch during the 2024 NFL season.
After many sweltering preseason games, the first matches of the regular NFL season will kick off in early to mid-September.
If Mother Nature sticks to what is usually seen during the first month of meteorological fall, Glendale, Arizona, will be home to the warmest NFL game of the season.
The Los Angeles Rams are scheduled to take on the Arizona Cardinals at State Farm Stadium on Sunday, Sept. 15.
Early fall days in the desert Southwest are typically warm, with highs that reach the low 100s. The climatological high in the Phoenix metro is 101 degrees, but the city reached 110 degrees back in 2000.
Fortunately for fans and players, Glendale’s stadium has a retractable roof that is usually closed, and there is typically plenty of air conditioning blasting in the arena.
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Due to the game not taking place in the parking lot, on-the-field temperatures will not rank as extreme as conditions experienced in Tampa, Florida.
The Sept. 8 match between the Washington Commanders and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Raymond James Stadium will statistically be the warmest game of the season.
An average high temperature in Central Florida during early September reaches nearly 91 degrees, which does not take into account the humidity.
Humidity values in the Sunshine State are typically high, making the heat index feel like 100 degrees or even warmer.
Also in the running for being the warmest game is the match between the Jacksonville Jaguars and the Miami Dolphins at Hard Rock Stadium.
Thanks to the daily sea breeze, Miami’s average high temperature on Sept. 8 is a degree cooler than what some communities along the Interstate 4 corridor experience.
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The coldest game during the regular season will happen during a familiar NFC rivalry between the Chicago Bears and the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field during Week 18.
The NFL has not announced a kickoff time for the game on Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025.
A typical early January day in Wisconsin starts out with a low of 13 degrees and finishes with a high of around 26 degrees.
National Weather Service climate data shows temperatures have been as cold as -22 degrees and as warm as 47 degrees on Jan. 5.
The thermometer readings do not take into account the wind chill, which makes prolonged exposure to the elements dangerous.
An average January day in Green Bay has a breeze of 10 mph, which can make the temperature feel like it is only 15 degrees during the afternoon.
There is a 65-degree temperature spread between the warmest and coldest games of the season, but the feel-like temperature difference is closer to 100 degrees when the heat index and the wind chill are taken into account.
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Florida’s daily thunderstorms could help make the Sept. 12 match between the Buffalo Bills and the Miami Dolphins one of the rainiest-prone games of the year.
According to National Weather Service historical data, South Florida averages around .33" of rainfall on a mid-September day.
Much of the rain is due to the state’s daily rounds of afternoon and evening showers and thunderstorms.
The pattern usually starts in June and ends in September, with July and August being the height of Florida’s annual summer thunderstorm activity.
Despite the appearance of the Dolphin’s Hard Rock Stadium, the facility does not have a retractable roof.
Hard Rock Stadium says when lightning is detected in close proximity, officials encourage the public to seek shelter and game operations are suspended.
Anemometers could be spinning fast at two games this season – both of which will be in the Northeast.
According to NOAA data, winds average about 12.6 mph in Boston during January and are about 12.7 mph at New York’s LaGuardia.
While neither coastal site is hosting a game, both are relatively close to NFL stadiums that will have Week 18 matches.
Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, will be the place where the Buffalo Bills take on the New England Patriots. And about 200 miles away, MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, will host the Miami Dolphins and New York Jets.
Sports enthusiasts say a windy day can cause a team to conduct shorter, more conservative passes and rely less on the kicking game.
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The snowiest venue in America, Highmark Stadium, is not hosting a game during the final week of the regular NFL season, but that will not stop upstate New York from possibly seeing the most impacted game of the year.
The final game of the year in Orchard Park, New York, between the Jets and Buffalo Bills on Dec. 29, still ranks statistically as the snowiest.
Buffalo, New York, averages around an inch of snow daily during late December and sees an annual accumulation of around 95.4 inches.
Cities such as Denver, Detroit, Green Bay and Foxborough, Massachusetts, are set to host regular-season games well into the new year, but their snow rates do not eclipse those along the Great Lakes.
Outside of the regular season, the snowiest games are usually playoff matches held in January and February.
A game that is guaranteed not to see any frozen precipitation on the field is Super Bowl LIX, which will be held in New Orleans on Feb. 9, 2025. While the city is no stranger to ice and snow, the Caesars Superdome will protect fans and players from Mother Nature’s elements.
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A phenomenon that many weather enthusiasts consider their Super Bowl of the year is the Atlantic hurricane season, which coincides with when football enters regular play.
The hurricane season starts on June 1 and runs through Nov. 30, which means two-thirds of the football season is vulnerable to impacts from tropical cyclones.
Previous threats from hurricanes have forced teams along the Gulf Coast and Southeast to relocate games to minimize impacts on community resources devoted to the natural disaster.
In Sept. 2021, the New Orleans Saints moved their home opener versus the Green Bay Packers to Jacksonville, Florida, to avoid the impacts of Hurricane Ida.
Hurricane Irma in September 2017 forced the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to reschedule their football game with the Miami Dolphins.
And in September 2008, Hurricane Ike forced the Houston Texans to postpone its home game with the Baltimore Ravens to later in the year.
In 2024, the game most likely to see a hurricane nearby is the matchup between the Carolina Panthers and New Orleans Saints on Sunday, Sept. 8.
According to NOAA historical cyclone data, 15 hurricanes have passed within 50 miles or less of the Big Easy during September, with most occurring during the first half of the month.
Nearly a dozen games will take place in hurricane hot zones from Texas through Florida, during the usually busy month of September.
Other home games to watch for tropical weather threats include contests in Houston, Jacksonville, Miami and Tampa.
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A new first for the NFL will be having a game in the Southern Hemisphere in 2024.
Previously, the international series has featured regular matches in the United Kingdom, Germany, Mexico and Canada, but a game in Brazil will add another stamp to the passport.
São Paulo is the country’s largest city and is slated to host the Green Bay Packers and Philadelphia Eagles on Sept. 6 at 8:15 p.m. ET.
According to climate data, the average high is around 77 degrees, and a typical low is around 59 degrees as the country enters its spring months.
Since Brazil is south of the equator, its seasons are opposite of those in the United States. September, October and November are the hemisphere’s spring months, while summer happens in December, January and February.
The appearance in São Paulo will also mark the furthest a regular season game has ever been held outside the U.S.
A trip between New York City and London is about 3,460 miles and takes about 8 hours to complete, but a flight from Miami to São Paulo is about 4,200 miles and takes at least 9 hours via airplane.
In 2025, the NFL plans to add yet another international city to the host list, with Madrid, Spain, joining London and other European destinations with a regular-season game.
Original article source: 2024 NFL season schedules: Weather extremes that will impact games
