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Cal Forecast:                                                                                        

“Is this your best?”

            -Bob W.

THE INTRO: 

Your browser may not support display of this image. Whoa Nelly, I don’t know how long we have been planning for this game but it is finally here.  Well almost here, but it is close enough that we can do a forecast.  And that is close enough for me.  Now this is going to be a…I don’t know if “historic” is the right word, but playing a team 3,000 miles from home has to be up there in the unusual department.  So it’s going to be something different, and different is good.  Hey don’t get me wrong, I love being in the ACC and seeing those schools every year, but these “exotic” games really get me excited (not to mention the fact I can do a forecast for a city outside of the Southeast for a change).  We should do this all the time.  I’m looking at you Arizona State and Hawaii! 
 

Anyway, though the trip to Cal is going to be the main highlight of the weekend, we can’t discount the importance of game 1.  That is one thing I love about College Football.  You open up the season, and it’s on.  Sure some schools will play inferior opponents, but you can also scan the dial and see some great games that first Saturday.  And though VT vs. Alabama is the big one, I think as week 1 match ups go, a lot of people are going to be staying up late to watch this one.  Let’s hope it turns out to be worth their time.   
 

Of course the whole point of this article is to look into the weather, so that’s what we are going to focus on now. In the movie “LA Story” Steve Martin plays a weather forecaster in Los Angeles.  The running joke is that he just shows up, puts the same sun stickers all over the map and calls it a day.  As a wise old man once told me, there is a little truth in every joke.   I think there may be a lot of truth in this one.  As most people probably know, San Francisco is a pretty mild climate.  Not too hot, and certainly not to cold.  In fact I think there are palm trees as far north as San Francisco.  Don’t hold me to that, but after Labor Day I’ll be able to give you a definite answer on that one.  But before we can predict the future, we need to take a few seconds to check out the past.   
 

THE HISTORY:

The weather for San Francisco on September 2nd is a little cooler than it would be on this date in College Park.   The average high is 72 F and the average low is 56 F.  Okay, maybe it’s a lot cooler than Maryland at this time of year.  Those conditions are down right pleasant, and it’s no wonder everyone wants to move out west.  The records for San Fran on this day aren’t going to impress anyone.  The record high for the day is 93F which occurred in 1950.  And the record low is 49F which occurred in 1946.  Now think about that for a second.  The regular low is 56 F and the record is only 7 F cooler than the average?!  Talk about moderation.  That is downright incredible. 

THE FORECAST:

The Farmers Almanac isn’t giving us much help on this one.  The forecast for the southwest covers a vast amount of land, but in all honesty, we don’t really need much help.  I think we are just going to stick with the normal temps and go from there.  I mean I’d be happy to come within 7 degrees of the actual temperatures and we already know how little variation there is in the bay area, so why make this harder than it needs to be? 
 

The forecast for the “Turtle and the Bear” game is pretty close to what you’d expect.  The average high for this date is 72 and that is what I’m going with.  The low is 56 and I think I’ll stay with that too.  Now one thing to keep in mind is that this will be a night game, so we should see some temperatures dipping into the low 60’s while we are at the game.  I don’t think we will see any rain.  It doesn’t look like it rains that often in San Francisco, and I don’t think this weekend will be any different.  So to recap, the high will be 72, and the low will be 56.  There will be clear skies, and overall a day that will make the people left back in Maryland jealous.   
 

Now this is where we have some bad news.  The what to wear department.  When traveling I like to pack as little as possible (Webmasters Note:  Or sometimes like to travel only with the clothes on his back, see VT Recap 08)  But that won’t be an option on this trip.  During the day it will probably be shorts weather, but by the evening, we could be in long sleeves mode.  It is always tough to call this time of year because 72 F is one thing, but when your body still thinks it’s August, 72 will feel pretty cold.  So I suggest Jeans, and a T-shirt and bring a long sleeve T just to be safe.     
 

SUNSET:

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Now the interesting thing about this game is that back home it won’t be starting to 10:00 PM.  That’s almost post Prime Time.  But for us that will be in California, this one will be kicking off at dusk.  To be specific the sun will set on this day in San Francisco at 7:36 PM.  On the flip side of that the sunrise will be at 6:40 AM.       
 

MOON:  
 

Your browser may not support display of this image. But even with our night game, it won’t be completely black out.  The moon will be just a hair short of full, I’ll go with 97% illumination.  It will also be out for the game as it rises at 6:36 PM just prior to kick off.   
 
 
 

Your browser may not support display of this image. THE HURRICANE REPORT:

I think it is safe to say there will not be a Hurricane in San Francisco.  Even if SF were on the Atlantic, I’d stick with that prediction since we have opened up the 2009 Hurricane Season extremely slow.  In fact we have yet to have a named storm in 2009.  The record for the latest we have gone without a named storm is August 29, so this may warrant keeping an “eye” on it.  Pun fully intended.   
 
 

Your browser may not support display of this image. THE SNOW REPORT:

The Snow report is closed for the season.  Look for it to come back in perhaps November. 

THE X-FACTOR: 

Just to show you some extremes that could happen and have happened on this particular date in weather history.  I think 1988 is my personal favorite!

  • 1856 - The Isle Derniere (Last Island) disaster occurred off the coast of Louisiana. A storm tide drowned 140 vacationers as a five foot wave swept over Low Island during a hurricane. (The Weather Channel)
  • 1882 - Sandusky OH noted a four minute snow squall during the morning, frost was reported in the suburbs of Chicago, and a killing frost was reported at Cresco IA. (The Weather Channel)
  • 1898 - The temperature at Pendleton OR climbed all the way to 119 degrees at set a state record. (The Weather Channel)
  • 1924 - Colorado's deadliest tornado killed a woman and nine children in one house along its twenty-mile path east southeast of Thurman. Mennonite men had left the farm to provide possible aid, as the 200-yard wide storm was first seen while far away.(The Weather Channel)
  • 1936 - The temperature soared to 114 degrees at Plain Dealing, LA, and reached 120 degrees at Ozark AR, to establish record highs for those two states. (The Weather Channel)
  • 1980 - Hurricane Allen came ashore above Brownsville, TX, dropping fifteen inches of rain near San Antonio, and up to 20 inches in the Lower Rio Grande Valley. Tidal flooding occurred along the South Texas coast. Hurricane Allen packed winds to 150 mph, and also spawned twenty-nine tornadoes. Total damage from the storm was estimated at 750 million dollars. (David Ludlum)
  • 1987 - Unseasonably hot weather continued in the southeastern U.S. Ten cities in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina reported record high temperatures for the date. Macon GA hit 101 degrees. A tropical depression deluged southeastern Texas and southwestern Louisiana with torrential rains. (The National Weather Summary)
  • 1988 - Citizens of Bluefield, WV, where the Chamber of Commerce provides free lemonade on days when the temperature warms into the 90s, were able to celebrate their record high of 90 degrees. Eight other cities also reported record high temperatures for the date,including Bismarck ND with a reading of 102 degrees.(The National Weather Summary)
  • 1989 - Thirty-eight cities in the south central and southeastern U.S. reported record low temperatures for the date, including Asheville NC with a reading of 48 degrees, and Victoria TX with a low of 63 degrees. Oklahoma City OK reported a record cool afternoon high of 71 degrees, and the daily high of 64 degrees at Raleigh NC established a record for August. In Arizona, a record sixty-four day streak of 100 degree days at Phoenix came to an end.(The National Weather Summary)
 
 

    **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.