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Clemson Forecast:                                                                                        

“Hopefully my pumpkin isn’t the only Orange thing getting carved up for this one.”

                                                            -Bob W.

THE INTRO: 

Well here it is, with all due respect to Christmas, this is the biggest day of the year.  Sure everyone gets presents on Christmas, but there is also the added stress of shopping, and spending tons of money, but the Clemson game, and more importantly the PUMPKIN CARVING GAME are all about having fun, and after all isn’t that what baby Jesus would have wanted?  Think about it, you could almost see one of the Wise men bring a pumpkin long before you could see them bring a mock turtle neck from Macy’s, so in a way maybe the Pumpkin Carving game is not only bigger than Christmas, but Christmas may also need to learn a few things from the Pumpkin Carving Game.  I believe Linus would agree with me!

On to football, and here is the good part, as I write this Maryland is currently ranked 27^th in the polls.  That is right!  The only thing keeping us from being in the top 25 for this one is UVA.  Now after week one, when UVA lost to Wyoming (quite handily by the way) we all assumed that the Wahoo’s had no chance in College Park, but things have changed down in Charlottesville, no they still wear ties and act pretentious, but the football team has rattled off win after win and actually sits atop the Coastal Division.  So the homecoming game is not the slam dunk we previously anticipated, but a Terps win would give us a ranked team on the verge of bowl eligibility for the Clemson match up.

On to the Tigers game.  This one is tough.  As everyone is aware, this is game number 3 of “Coin Flip October”.  What is “Coin Flip October?”, well other than a horrible nickname, CFO refers to the 3 games we have in October.  All 3 of the games you see on the schedule and say to yourself, “wow this one could go either way”.  Ga Tech came down to a last minute field goal attempt that “could have gone either way”.  Who knows what will happen in the UVA game, and then there is Clemson.  On October 1, I wanted to take 2 out of 3 in October, but with the Ga Tech win, I’m getting greedy.  We could win all three, then again on the other hand we could lose the remaining two.  You just don’t know which is what is so great about the 2007 Maryland Terrapins.

Certain years, you can go through our schedule and say W, W, L, L, W, L, W, L, L W, L (that was a hypothetical example from the Duffner Era).  But this team, and most importantly this conference is a clean slate every week.  Miami beats Texas A&M, then loses to UNC, who previously had beaten only…. well I’m not even sure who.  Then Boston College looks like world beaters, only to just barely squeak out wins over Army, and UMASS?  You could go on and on, though at this point it is probably safe to throw out the Ga Tech Notre Dame win. 

And when it comes to unpredictability you have to think Clemson.  I have watched the Tigers this year and thought to myself, this is the best team in the Conference, I think this is finally going to be the season they put it all together and go to the Orange Bowl, and then there is the Clemson-Ga Tech disaster, followed by an even more inexplicable Clemson-Va Tech game.  (Mental note, write Debbie Yow to see if we can change our name to Maryland Tech for this one, just to be safe).  Clemson is nearly impossible to figure out.  We could beat them by 25, or we could loss to them by 25, you just don’t know, but what I do know is that in 2007, anything can happen and that is why we have to show up early, and ready to scream.

So bring your best Terrapin pumpkin and bring your enthusiasm and lets make this the loudest road game Clemson has yet to play.  However, though we can control the atmosphere inside the stadium, we can’t do much about it outside, which brings us back to the weather forecast. 

THE HISTORY:

Since October features nothing but home games, you know we are back in Lot 1 for this match up.  The average high for College Park on October 27^th is 64 F and the average low is 46 both of which are 2 degree drops from the UVA game a week earlier.  The record high for this date in College Park is 83, set back in 1963, and the record low is 30 back in 1962.   As for kick off who knows?  I just hope that we can get a 3:30 start at the earliest.  So far we have lucked out with night games for the first 2 Pumpkin Carving contests, so maybe we can keep that rolling, but you got to think eventually we’ll get screwed over.  Once again with this time of year, the kickoff time is going to determine a lot about the weather we’ll experience, but that doesn’t seem to really worry the ACC much, who are refusing to give out game times until just about the day before!

THE FORECAST:

This one is very interesting.  According to the Farmers Almanac we are supposed to have calm weather leading up to the weekend, but then unsettled weather for Saturday.  I have no idea what unsettled means.  Webster defines it as “Not orderly or stable, or uncertain”.  Wow, I never knew “Uncertain” was a forecast option, that kind of takes the pressure off don’t you think?  But I’m not going to tuck tail like the Almanac, I’m going to make a stand.  So I guess I’m on my own, but I know not to expect normal weather for this one.  Since it is October, I’m going to go interpret this as meaning mostly cloudy with a chance of rain and wind.  So here we go:

The forecast for the October 27^th “Terps vs. Kittens Game” is for cloudy and unsettled weather.  Note I didn’t say uncertain, just unsettled.  It will be cloudy most of the day with a chance of a shower, but mostly I think it will just be cloudy.  The wind will also be a player.  The high should be in the low 60’s or upper 50’s  and as in the UVA game, the kick off time is going to greatly factor into what we see weather wise.  Fortunately the low won’t be too bad, I’m putting it around 51.  Yeah I know 51 isn’t warm, but it isn’t summer anymore despite the near record heat for the Ga Tech game.   The winds will be gusty and annoying, I’ll say 10-15 mph with a chance of a gust or two getting over the 20 mph range.  Flip Cup will be affected unfortunately.  So to recap, high 60, low 51,overcast with a chance of rain all day, hefty breeze.

For this game we are going code Orange for the poncho warning.  Hmmm, on second thought, maybe Orange isn’t a good color for this tailgate, let’s go with code DARK YELLOW.   It’s basically the same thing as Orange, but more PC for this match up.  Anyway, you may or may not need a poncho, but it is better to be prepared because this is shaping up to be an unpredictable day (and yes I am aware that unpredictable is my predication).   

The game day sunrise for College Park, MD on October 27, 2007 is 7:29 AM.  I can’t speak for J, but I know I don’t need to see another tailgate sunrise this year.  The sunset for October 27^th is 6:13 which would be a perfect time to do the pumpkin judging if we could just somehow grab that 8:00 start time.

As for the moon, we’ll it wouldn’t feel like Halloween if we didn’t have a big old full moon up above us.  Luckily for us, mother nature agrees this year.  There will be a 100% full moon on October 27^th.  It will set at 9:22 am that morning, but don’t worry, it will be back up by 6:59 pm.  Of course based on my forecast you really won’t get to see the moon, but just in case I’m wrong, there’s your lunar forecast.

THE HURRICANE REPORT:

By now we are past the peak of the 2007 Hurricane Season.  Though some down in Mexico and Belize may argue, the 2007 season has been pretty uneventful in our neck of the woods.  I guess that’s good, but still couldn’t we have one storm at least give the east coast a funny look, just to stir thing up in the Hurricane Report?  Oh well, I guess there are worse problems to have (like having a Bowden as your coach!!).  Anyway, for the October 27, game we are setting the Hurricane Ranking at 3.  I really don’t see anything being an issue, even during the peak season anything with any organization was quickly blown to pieces by the upper level winds, so I think we are pretty safe.     

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THE SNOW REPORT:

Well the historic low is below freezing so we have to do the Snow Report.  I think the chance of snow is even less than the chance for a Hurricane, but still I suppose it could happen.  I should look up the earliest snow fall on record for Washington DC.  I remember driving around late one night in October and seeing a flurry but that is it, so it has to be possible, but even if it has it couldn’t have been much.  So we are going to say there is no shot at seeing snow on October 27, 2007.  Maybe we’ll have some luck come the BC game in November.    

THE X-FACTOR: 

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

• 1764 - A "very remarkable storm of snow with high winds" produced 22 inches at Rutland in central Massachusetts. (David Ludlum)
• 1929 - A snowstorm dumped 27 inches upon Ishpeming, MI, in 24 hours to establish a state record. (David Ludlum)
• 1962 - An early season winter storm over New England blanketed northern Maine with 7 to 16 inches of snow, and southeastern New England with up to 3 inches of snow. Worcester MA received a record 4.7 inches of snow. (The Weather Channel)
• 1987 - Showers and thunderstorms produced locally heavy rain from Virginia to New York State. Fallen leaves made roads and sidewalks slick, and also clogged sewers. Rainfall totals of 1.55 inches at Newark NJ, 1.54 inches at Harrisburg PA, 1.27 inches at Scranton PA, and 1.22 inches at Atlantic City NJ, were records for the date. (The National Weather Summary)
• 1988 - Low pressure brought snow and gale force winds to the Great Lakes Region, and snow and high winds to the north central U.S. Winds gusted to 47 mph at Lansing MI, and reached 55 mph at Pierre SD. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
• 1989 - Wintry weather invaded the northwestern U.S. A storm crossing the Central Rockies produced up to 23 inches of snow in the mountains east of Salt Lake City UT. "Indian Summer" continued in the Lower Ohio Valley and the Upper Great Lakes Region. Afternoon highs of 71 degrees at Marquette MI and 72 degrees at Sault Ste Marie MI were records for the date. (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.