SAN JOSE — The stage is set for two of the Bay Area’s biggest events to meet in a head-to-head clash.
El Niño, say hello to Super Bowl 50.
In less than two weeks, hundreds of thousands of visitors will come to the Bay Area for the Feb. 7 NFL championship game at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara. The game will culminate nine days of special events throughout the Bay Area, including the free, outdoor festival Super Bowl City in San Francisco, which is expected to attract 1 million visitors.
Unfortunately for the NFL, Super Bowl 50 is arriving in the midst of one of the most powerful El Niño winters on record, conditions that have delivered a series of storms this month, with more expected through April.
Weather scientists say the odds are high the Bay Area will see rain at least at some point during Super Bowl week.
But will it rain on Super Bowl Sunday?
“The first week of February is typically a pretty wet week,” in the Bay Area, said Jan Null, a meteorologist with Golden Gate Weather Services in Saratoga. “It’s a coin flip if it will occur during the game itself.”
Null noted that since 1966, Mineta San Jose International Airport, the city’s primary weather station and about 4 miles away from Levi’s Stadium, has recorded rain the first week in February 76 percent of the time, including 20 times on Feb. 7.
In the El Niño winter of 1997-98, the Bay Area received its highest rainfall total ever for the first week of February, as San Francisco was drenched with 7.76 inches of rain and San Jose was soaked with 6.2 inches.
Steady rain on the Super Bowl hasn’t happened very often, according to William Schmitz, a meteorologist with the Southeast Regional Climate Center and a self-described “sports nut” who combines his passions to produce a weather and climate summary for every Super Bowl, including rainfall totals, high and low temperatures, wind gusts and snowfall.
Schmitz, who grew up in the Bay Area and remembers the El Niño winters of 1982-83 and 1997-98, reported measurable amounts of rain at 14 of 49 Super Bowl cities on game day. Schmitz gathers 24-hour rainfall totals using the gauge closest to the stadium hosting the event.
In the history of the Super Bowl, just two games have been played in steady rains, according to Schmitz’s data. The wettest Super Bowl on record was in 2007, when .92 inches of rain fell in Miami as the Indianapolis Colts beat the Chicago Bears 29-17. There was a steady downpour during Prince’s halftime performance — he played “Purple Rain” in the rain.
In 1970, the Kansas City Chiefs beat the Minnesota Vikings 23-7 at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans. Schmitz said .57 inches of rain fell that day.
While fans who paid thousands of dollars for tickets to the Super Bowl are surely hoping Mother Nature takes the day off — umbrellas are not allowed inside the stadium on game day — rain will most likely affect the events leading up to the big game.
But organizers say they will be ready for El Niño’s worst.
Super Bowl City, which will be in San Francisco’s Justin Herman Plaza on the Embarcadero, is being touted as a “free-to-the-public fan village designed to celebrate the milestone Super Bowl 50 and to highlight its unique place in the Bay Area.”
Also in San Francisco is the NFL Experience, an interactive theme park that charges admission and offers interactive games, and a City Stage featuring free shows from artists including Alicia Keys, One Republic, The Band Perry, Matt Nathanson and Chris Isaak.
Keith Bruce, CEO of the Super Bowl 50 Host Committee, said Super Bowl City was built with El Niño-driven storms in mind. The fan village will be built near several major public buildings, including restaurants, coffee shops and hotels, that could provide shelter during a downpour.
“There will be a number of places for fans to go if it comes down in buckets,” Bruce said.
In the event of powerful wind gusts, the structures were built to handle winds up to 80 mph, instead of the industry-standard 60 mph, Bruce said. Volunteers will be ready to hand out ponchos at entrances to Super Bowl City on days it rains “for fans who didn’t read the forecast.”
And the Super Bowl 50 website will provide daily forecasts for the estimated 1 million people expected to visit Super Bowl City, Bruce said.
“We’ve built the plans of Super Bowl City to reflect the fact it’s going to rain, as opposed to building hoping it doesn’t rain,” Bruce said. “With that mindset, we’ll be ready for inclement weather.”
Outdoor events are also planned in Santa Clara and San Jose.
The National Weather Service isn’t expected to have a Super Bowl weather forecast until five days before the game. But Wednesday the weather service said one of its computer models indicates the Pacific staying “active with storms lined up” in the first week of February.
“You really can’t be very confident,” weather service meteorologist Steve Anderson said of a Super Bowl week forecast. “Sometimes the models get it right. Sometimes it’s a 180-degree difference.”
Other weather experts say January is following a typical El Niño weather pattern, with storm systems moving across the Bay Area about every 24 hours. So far, the Bay Area has received measurable rainfall in 13 of the first 20 days for above-average totals, according to the weather service. Another system is expected to bring rain to the Bay Area on Friday.
Last week, scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in College Park, Maryland, said there is a 96 percent chance El Niño conditions will persist through March.
Historically, in the five strongest El Niño winters, February has been the wettest month. In the past two winters with strong El Niño conditions, it rained an average of 15 days in February.
Null’s best guess at this point is there is a high likelihood of rain during Super Bowl week, but not every day.
Bruce is anticipating rain during Super Bowl week but believes as long as the rain is not “24/7, there will be a break and it will allow people to dry out.”
“People are ready to celebrate the Super Bowl, rain or shine, because the event is such a bucket-list event,” Bruce said. “People are willing to grin and bear the bad weather.”
