GEDDES -- It’s game week! We are now four days out from a historic event in Syracuse. Come this Saturday, February 20, the New York State Fairgrounds will be abuzz with hockey fans from all over to watch the Syracuse Crunch take on the Binghamton Senators at 1:00 p.m. in a rare outdoor hockey game.
I had the great fortune to not only check out the rink and facilities at the Fairgrounds last weekend, but give it a “test run” with about a dozen of the Crunch staff and a few local adult league players (see photo). It is something to behold! There is still plenty of work to be done, and believe me, they are doing it around-the-clock, preparing for this big day, and weather will play an important part. It is very impressive!
So, the big question remains, “What’s the weather going to be for game day?” From a technical standpoint, I still feel the upper atmospheric high and low pressure systems across North America will “generally” remain in the same position as they have been for the past few weeks, although the pattern may weaken a bit. This “general” pattern of low pressure over eastern Canada and Newfoundland, and another in the Gulf of Alaska means temperatures ‘trending” on the seasonable side heading to game day this Saturday, which means a few degrees milder during the day than the past few weeks have been.
So, where does that leave us? My updated forecast for game day (subject to change of course) is this:
Partly to mostly cloudy sky. Light snow or snowshowers possible. Early morning temperature 18-24 degrees rising to an afternoon (game time) high temperature of 30-35 degrees with a southerly breeze of 10-15 mph giving us a wind chill reading of 20-25 degrees.
Bottom line, great weather for an outdoor hockey game! If you are planning to attend this historic event, dress in layers and you should be fine.
I’ll keep checking computer models and overall patterns and fine tune this very initial forecast, so keep checking back and stay tuned. And remember, when game day gets here, if there is any snow or rain around, you can track it with the CNYcentral.com Triple Doppler Radar.
