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Florida State Forecast:                                                                                        

“You see, when you asked me if there were any Indians around the next bend, I thought you meant people from India.  If you’d said are there any Native American’s, I would have said, ‘Yes, thousands of them, lets get the hell out of here.  I just reported what you asked me.”

                                                            -Custer’s last Scout    

THE INTRO: 

In case you are wondering why I’m drawing the Custer comparison for the Maryland FSU football game, you obviously haven’t been following the 2007 season.  Let’s see, where to begin, we are totally out numbered, we are a long LONG way from home, and we are about to be surrounded by thousands of Indians, who though were once down and out, and believed to be remnants of a past dynasty, are indeed very much alive and kicking.  The only difference between us and Custer is that Custer carried himself with an air of invincibility, while we pretty much know we are screwed (that and the fact that we won’t be scalped afterwards…..so maybe there are two differences.). 

As for the Terps, let’s just hope that they enjoy this trip to the “Sunshine State” because in all seriousness, we won’t be back to Florida in 2007.  If we can miracle up a bowl game it will not be anywhere warm.  As mentioned in the BC forecast, I’m really pulling for Boise, but for whatever reason the Terps either aim too high, or shot too low when it come to playing on the Blue Turf.  It isn’t something I want to shoot for in September, but from now on, once we get L #3, I switching over to Boise Mode.  I will not consider my life “lived” until I’ve seen the Terps play on the “Smurf Turf”. 

But back to the issue at hand.  You just never seem to know what to expect in College Football, the head says FSU should have little trouble with the Terps 3^rd and 4^th stringers, but yet there is still a part of me that says “well if this or that happens and we do force a fumble or an interception here or there, who knows”.  So I’m not full fledged giving up on our boys, but I do think this one is going to be a little more difficult than I thought it might be after we beat Georgia Tech to go 4-2.

Anyway, there was some talk about some D7’ers possibly making this trip.  I don’t know if the recent events have caused any changes to those plans, but whether or not we will be representing in Tallahassee, the show must go on here at the D7 Weather Desk.  I mean afterall, this is a pretty big game for me and my report card (as seen on Tailgate recap!).  So lets get to it:

THE HISTORY:

The Terps take their second longest road trip of the year to face the Seminoles in Tallahassee Florida, and we all know how happy that makes me!  In fact, if it wasn’t for the homefield advantage in college football, my motto would be the further we can send the team, the better.  I love the exotic weather locals.  So as just mentioned, the Terps are traveling to the Capital of the Sunshine State so lets look at the numbers.  The average high for this date in Tallahassee is 72 degrees.  The average low is 48.  The record high for this date is 85 set back in 1938 and the record low is a shockingly cold 24 set in 1970.   I don’t think we have a kickoff time yet, but I’m thinking this one will be a nooner, or a 3:30 start.  

THE FORECAST:

With only 2 games left to do forecasts for, and my final grade still pretty much up in the air, this is a big day for me.  The Farmers Almanac is calling for mostly fair skies in the Southeast so that kind of makes my job a little easier, and with only 2 games left, I don’t see any reason to buck the system, so here we go:

The forecast for the November 17^th “Terps vs. 1 little, 2 little, 3 little Indians” game is looking at some pleasant weather.  If you are heading down for this one, you picked a great time to go.  The high should be in the mid to low 70’s, we’ll say 74, and the low should be in the lower 50’s.  We’ll say 52.  As long as the game isn’t a night game you can probably get by with a Tee shirt and maybe a light jacket or long sleeve shirt for the evening hours.  The winds should be calm, probably in the 0-5 mph range, and the sky will be mostly sunny with the occasional cloud, but nothing to worry about.  So overall I’m saying High 74, Low 52, mostly sunny, with just a slight breeze.  I don’t care where you are in America, that’s a pretty good day.

No warnings for this game.  In fact these conditions are about as close as you can get to playing inside, without actually…playing inside! 

The game day sunrise for Tallahassee, FL on November 17, 2007 is 7:04 AM.  The sunset should be around 5:39. 

As for the moon, this is kind of interesting.  The moon will rise at 1:09 PM, but won’t set until November 18^th, so basically there is no moon set on November 17^th either in the morning or in the evening.  The moon will be visible though.  It will be a waxing crescent about 45% illuminated.  Just a day or two from being a perfect half.    

THE HURRICANE REPORT:

Despite the fact that we will be in Florida for this game, we are getting pretty late in the season for Hurricane Threats.  Put this game in September or October and this section is pretty important, but by mid November things are really winding down in the Atlantic.  We’ll put the warning at 9, just because you can’t lower your guard too much when you are in Florida.

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THE SNOW REPORT:

I was going to leave this section blank, but quiet frankly when the historic low in Tallahassee is 24, snow is certainly a possibility, but I’m not giving it too much thought.  I think it would be pretty big news to have a Maryland-FSU snow game in Tallahassee, hell we can’t even get one in Boston. 

THE X-FACTOR: 

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

• 1940 - The Galloping Gertie bridge at Tacoma, WA, collapsed in strong winds resulting in a six million dollar loss, just four months after the grand opening of the new bridge. The winds caused the evenly sized spans of the bridge to begin to vibrate until the central one finally collapsed. From that point on bridges were constructed with spans of varying size. (David Ludlum)
• 1951 - At 7 AM a blinding flash, a huge ball of fire, and a terrific roar occurred over parts of Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas, caused by a disintegrating meteor. Windows were broken in and near Hinton OK by the concussion. (The Weather Channel)
• 1986 - An early season blizzard struck the Northern Plains Region. North Dakota took the brunt of the storm with wind gusts to 70 mph, and snowfall totals ranged up to 25 inches at Devils Lake. (Storm Data)
• 1987 - Heavy snow fell across parts of eastern New York State overnight, with twelve inches reported at the town of Piseco, located in the Mohawk Valley. A storm in the southwestern U.S. left nine inches of snow at the Winter Park ski resort in Colorado. Smoke from forest fires reduced visibilities to less than a mile at some locations from North Carolina to Ohio and Pennsylvania. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
• 1988 - Unseasonably warm weather continued across the state of Texas. Seven cities reported record high temperatures for the date, including Waco and Del Rio with readings of 92 degrees. McAllen was the hot spot in the nation with a high of 96 degrees. (The National Weather Summary)
• 1989 - Shortly after daybreak strong thunderstorms developed over a narrow, but almost stationary, east-west band across New Orleans, in southeastern Louisiana. As a result, heavy rains persisted over the same area until mid afternoon before tapering off, and triggered flash flooding across a five county area. Eight to twelve inch rains deluged the area between 9 AM and 6 PM, and totals for the 48 hour period ending at 7 AM on the 8th ranged up to 19.78 inches, between Lake Lexy and Lake Borgne. Approximately 6000 homes in the area reported water damage. The rainfall total for November of 19.81 inches at New Orleans was their highest total for any given month of the year. (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.