Past IEM Features tagged: football

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Data courtesy of National Lightning Detection Network

Lightning delays at Kinnick

18 Sep 2022 06:23 AM
While talking about University of Iowa football on a ISU website may get me in trouble, there was a significant weather angle to game Saturday night in Iowa City vs Nevada. The game experienced three lightning delays with the game finishing after 1 AM. These delays were due to having a strike detected within eight miles of the stadium, which then starts a 30 minute clock requiring no further strikes before play can resume. The featured chart presents the time since last strike within eight miles of Kinnick Stadium with the delays shaded on the chart. Getting the exact delay times was a challenge, so perhaps this plot will get updated later today once better timestamps can be found.

Voting:
Good: 14
Bad: 2

Tags:   lightning   football  

Football Forecast Failure

16 Sep 2019 05:34 AM
The weather ended up playing a much larger role for the big ISU vs Iowa football game in Ames this past Saturday than was forecast. Lightning delayed the game twice and downpours made for a very slippery and sometimes muddy field. This weather was not well forecast and not well handled by the weather forecast models. The featured map looks at the NCEP HRRR model, which is run hourly and provides high resolution depictions of thunderstorms. The map presents the time lagged composite of forecast reflectivity valid at 4 PM. The frequency shown is the number of models out of the possible previous 15 runs that had at least 30 dBZ analyzed reflectivity forecast at 4 PM on Saturday. The lower left map shows the actual RADAR at this time. This model was holding off on storms until much later into the evening. The HRRR model was not alone with missing this forecast.

Voting:
Good: 15
Bad: 2

Tags:   football  

Cancelled Football Game

02 Sep 2018 09:03 PM
The ISU vs South Dakota State football game got cancelled Saturday evening due to lightning. The game started on time, but was suspended shortly thereafter once lightning was detected near the stadium. The policy is for the game to resume once there has been at least 30 minutes of no lightning within 8 miles of Jack Trice Stadium. The featured chart presents the time duration since the latest lightning strike within 8 miles for the evening of the event. This analysis shows only a brief window of time just before 9 PM that this 30 minute rule requirement would have been satisfied. Otherwise, the game could have only resumed around 1 AM!

Voting:
Good: 19
Bad: 1
Abstain: 1

Tags:   football   lightning  

At least the weather was nice

14 Sep 2015 05:35 AM
For Iowa State fans, while the score of the big football game on Saturday did not work out in their favor, at least the weather was very nice! The featured chart displays the past ISU vs Iowa games since 2002. The approximate kick off temperature is shown along with the reported wind speed based on the nearby ASOS weather station to the site of the game. A reminder of who won each game is depicted by the colored bars.

Voting:
Good: 17
Bad: 8
Abstain: 4

Tags:   football