06 William and Mary

William and Mary Forecast

“Look, what did you expect? Us to open up against Texas?”

Chief D-7 Meteorologist Bob Wevodau

THE INTRO:
Does anyone really care what the weather is going to be for the first tailgate of the year? I mean we have only been waiting 9 months for this. Anyway, it looks as though the Terps should open up 1-0 to start the year and though this doesn’t look to be the best game to watch, it’s still Maryland Football. Plus we should not take 1-0 starts for granted ever since the Northern Illinois and Notre Dame games.

Now as I write this I have one thermometer telling me that it is 100 F° out in the sun and another one telling me it’s 96 F° in the shade. Either way I will guarantee the William and Mary Weather will be better than this, it just has to be. I don’t care if it rains the whole day, if it’s 95 F°, or if it’s 40 degree out. It will definitely be better than today.

Luckily for this monster match up we already have a game time. And unlike last year, glory be to good, it isn’t a noon start. We will be kicking off the 2006 season at 6pm which is great news for the game. Unfortunately this puts our tailgate right in the middle of the prime sun burn hours, but I would rather fry in the parking lot where we have shade trees and cold beer, than in Byrd where every white or silver object seems to be directing the sun into your face.

William and Mary Weather Update

First of all everyone chill. Is it going to be raining later this week? Hell yes in fact we are all ready under a Flash Flood Watch and it is only Wednesday, but don’t fret. The worst of it will be Friday into Friday night. Perhaps there may be some concern on Saturday morning, but our noon tailgating start should keep us high and dry. Sure it may be breezy, but I don’t think it will stop any flip cup games from breaking out. So the revised forecast is for highs in the low 80’s, with a chance of showers early. Then we should be fine. Sun block code is still RED. Poncho code is now YELLOW. Here is the golden rule for hurricanes and tropical storms. If 5 days out they are calling for a storm to hit your tailgate/beach house you are in the safest possible spot. 48-24 hours out, you are pretty screwed, but anything more than 5 days and the odds of the forecast holding together are pretty slim. So try to stay dry Friday, and come out drinking Saturday.

THE HISTORY:

Looking now at the weather history for this day in College Park, the average high temperature for September 2 is 83 F°, which is about 20 degrees less than the high for August 2 let me tell you, and the average low is a nice cool 66 F°. The record high for September 2 is 101 F° set in 1980 (OK maybe there is no absolute guarantee that it will be cooler than today, but I am pretty sure it will be), and the record low for this date is a dreamy 50 F° which happened way back in 1895 (you know, before global warming). I am really hoping that we are closer to the record low than the record high.

THE FORECAST:
When it comes to the Almanac the news does not look encouraging. The Almanac is calling for continued hot weather. That seems discouraging but on the bright side, the forecast for September 4-7^th is “Danger of a hurricane along the coast”. So things could be worse. So with the continued hot trend predicted in the Almanac, I am going to call for a hot early September day, the high will be 91 which will only cool down slightly before kickoff. The low for the day will be somewhere in the upper 60’s, we’ll say 68. I predicting a relatively cloudless days and a breeze that really won’t be noticed. So with that we will make the forecast as follows:

The forecast for the September 2, 2006 “Tribes and Tribulations Game” is for hot weather. Not the most ideal football conditions, but still conditions typical for this time of year in Maryland. The clouds will be few and far between. The morning will obviously start out reasonable (just to recap, the morning low will be about 68 by 6 am), but it won’t matter to us because with the 6 pm start, we’ll still be in bed. The afternoon however will warm up quite quickly. The high will reach 91 F° by the time the tailgate is in full swing. By game time the temps should come down but not much. Luckily as the sun continues to sink the temps will settle back into the 80’s and by the time we also settle into bed it should be down in the 70’s.

With the clear skies and hot weather I am going to issue a CODE RED sun burn warning, so be prepared!

The game day sunrise in College Park, MD on September 2^nd is for 6:37 am. The sunset is scheduled for 7:37 pm or just around half time. For those moon gazers out their, the moon should be up 4:21 (kind of like BJ in college) and will be out until midnight (kind of like me in college). The moon will be a waxing Gibbous 66% illuminated.

THE SNOW REPORT:

Are you kidding me. I will leave this section in here though so I don’t forget to do it as we move into November. However if you haven’t figured out by the historical low of 50F for this day, there has never been any snow in College Park on September 2^nd.

Look here for further updates, as we get closer to game day.

THE CHARITY PLEA:

Don’t forget to save your loose change and stray bills to donate to our “Save the Terrapin” fund. Remember with every $15 we raise we can save/adopt one terrapin through the Terrapin Institute, which will be saved (by being tagged) from commercial harvest. All “STT” progress will be monitored on the website.

THE X-FACTOR:

Just to show you some extremes that could happen and have happened on this particular date in weather history.

1935 - Perhaps the most intense hurricane ever to hit the U.S. struck the Florida Keys with 200 mph winds. The hurricane produced a fifteen foot tide and waves thirty feet high. 400 persons perished in the storm on that Labor Day. The barometric pressure at Matecumbe Bay FL hits a record low for the U.S. of 26.35 inches. (David Ludlum)
1950 - The temperature at Mecca, CA, soared to 126 degrees to establish a U.S. record for the month of September. The low that morning was 89 degrees. (The Weather Channel)
1985 - After teasing residents along the Gulf of Mexico for two days, Hurricane Elena finally came ashore at Biloxi MS. The hurricane, packing winds of 127 mph, caused more than a billion dollars damage. (The Weather Channel)
1987 - Late evening thunderstorms in the Northern Plains Region produced wind gusts to 75 mph at Jordan MT, and a "hot flash" at Redig SD. The temperature at Redig rose from 66 degrees at 10 PM to 86 degrees at 11 PM as thunderstorm winds gusted to 36 mph. Nine cities in the Upper Ohio Valley, the Tennessee Valley and the Central Gulf Coast States reported record low temperatures for the date, including Elkins WV with a reading of 38 degrees. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
1988 - Unseasonably hot weather prevailed in the northwestern U.S. Afternoon highs of 98 degrees at Olympia WA, 98 degrees at Seattle WA, 105 degrees at Portland OR, and 110 degrees at Medford OR, established records for the month of September. Quillayute WA equalled their September record with an afternoon high of 97 degrees. (The National Weather Summary)
1989 - Eight cities in the Gulf Coast Region reported record high temperatures for the date as readings soared into the upper 90s. Houston TX and Port Arthur TX hit 99 degrees. Late evening thunderstorms, developing ahead of a cold front, produced wind gusts to 63 mph at Dickinson ND, and golf ball size hail in North Dakota and Nebraska. Winds along the cold front itself gusted to 62 mph at Buffalo SD. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)

***This is a disclaimer to remove all responsibility on myself if this forecast is wrong. Being that it is very difficult to predict the weather greater than 48 hours in advance, the odds of needing this disclaimer are about 100%. However I do believe this forecast will be pretty close to what

we can actually look to expect.

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