It's going to be cold and possibly snowy at 1 p.m. Sunday in Ice Station Zebra, aka Giants Stadium, where the wind is on steroids even in the non "R" months. Winter conditions definitely will impact the fans and the noble Eagles and Giants gladiators they will be traveling to cheer.
Cold, snowy and windy on Jan. 11 in North Jersey? Holy Al Gore, I'm shocked.
The operative question becomes: How cold, how much snow and how windy, with the emphasis on wind; it is a venue where, under the worst circumstances, it appears to blow from every direction at once, including straight down and straight up.
The cold will be in a fairly tight window between upper 20s and low 30s. No frostbite there. The models continue to make what began as a weak and fast-moving Clipper into a more significant event that could dump 3-5 inches of snow on North Jersey and make driving up the N.J. Turnpike a slippery pain in the Eagles Nation's butt.
But the wind is not as easy to call. There could be less wind now that it appears the storm could be winding down after the kickoff. But every storm this winter with origins in Northwest Canada - think the New Year's Eve storm that missed us, but plastered New York and New England - has deepened rapidly after moving off the southern New England coast. They have cranked winds in their wake ranging from advisory to warning levels. But that might not happen until later in the afternoon. So Donovan McNabb and Eli Manning could duck the wind-advisory bullet.
With the first flakes still more than 24 hours away when you read this, there could be more model flip-flops. But I don't think the wind will be extreme. The systems are racing by too fast for a prolonged pressure gradient to set up. That will happen later next week. So, I'll go with 15-20 mph out of the northeast, shifting to 20-25 and gusty out of the northwest in the second half.
Forecast confidence? Above average. *
- Bill Conlin
