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Three Interesting Weather Facts About U.S. Bank Stadium And Super Bowl LII

Marshall Shepherd
Marshall ShepherdSenior Contributor
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Baseball may be considered America's national pastime, but Super Bowl Sunday has become an "unofficial" national holiday. Rabid football fans tune in to watch the games. Casual viewers join the fun for the parties and overpriced commercials. In 2018, Super Bowl LII will feature the New England Patriots and Philadelphia Eagles. Both of these teams play their home games in outdoor stadiums, but the Super Bowl will be played in one the NFL's newest stadiums, U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis Minnesota. Since this state-of-the-art new facility is a dome stadium, weather will not be much of a factor for game play. However, there are three interesting facts about the venue and the Super Bowl that involve weather.

City of Minneapolis website

The first interesting fact is that Super Bowl LII is in the running to be the "coldest" Super Bowl ever. While this will not affect the game itself, fans traveling to the game or considering tailgating will be affected. As of the morning of the Super Bowl LII, the National Weather Service-Twin Cities' official forecast for Minneapolis was,

Sunday: Sunny and cold, with a high near 4. Wind chill values as low as -26. North northwest wind 5 to 10 mph becoming west in the afternoon. Sunday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around -3. Wind chill values as low as -14. Southwest wind around 5 mph.
According to the Southeast Regional Climate Center's database, the Super Bowl played in Pontiac, Michigan (also in a dome) holds the record with a maximum temperature of 16 degrees F and a minimum temperature of 5 degrees F. 18 of 51 Super Bowls have been played indoors, and Super Bowl LII may notch its number in the record books. By the way, the coldest non-dome Super Bowl was played in 1972. The maximum temperature was 43 degrees at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans as the Dallas Cowboys and Miami Dolphins did battle.
Marshall Shepherd/College of Dupage
The second interesting fact is about U.S. Bank stadium itself. It is a stadium with some interesting design features for weather and that certainly makes sense given its location. In 2010, the inflatable roof of the Metrodome, the Minnesota Viking's previous home, collapsed under the weight of 17 inches of snow and windy conditions. The designers of U.S. Bank Stadium clearly learned a lesson from that episode. First, the new stadium has a roof pitched at significant angles to allow snow and ice to slide off into catch basins. This "glorified gutter system" has a total area of about 58,000 square feet. The basins also have a sophisticated mat system with plastic piping that can be heated to melt the snow or ice ((think heat bathroom floors).
Jay Grubesic, an executive with Uponor North America, told the Minnesota Star Tribune that the stadium snow mitigation system was designed to account for different snowfall rates, accumulation rates, and wind patterns. Tom Meersman writes in the Star Tribune,

Grubesic said the design for the new stadium — officially called the Minnesota Multi-Purpose Stadium — took into account that snow can accumulate at different depths and melt at different rates, depending on what side of the roof it falls on, wind conditions, the angle of the sun and other factors.....Because of that, he said, the system has six different zones that operate independently and can run for longer or shorter periods of time as needed.

The third fact is that there are actually rules governing the selection of a Super Bowl site, and some involve the weather. In 2014, a CBS News report provided insight from a "leaked" document. Most of the criteria were related to tax exemptions, cellular service, parking, and other logistics issues. The full list is published by CBS News here. The document contained discussions about "climate-controlled domed stadium" if the climatological average temperature was below 50 degrees  and guidelines for NFL priority for ice and snow removal projects unless life or public safety was threatened.

Ok, enough fun facts for the day. Enjoy the game.

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Marshall Shepherd
Marshall Shepherd

Dr. J. Marshall Shepherd, a leading international expert in weather and climate, was the 2013 President of American Meteorological Society (AMS) and is Director of the

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Dr. J. Marshall Shepherd, a leading international expert in weather and climate, was the 2013 President of American Meteorological Society (AMS) and is Director of the University of Georgia’s (UGA) Atmospheric Sciences Program. Dr. Shepherd is the Georgia Athletic Association Distinguished Professor and hosts The Weather Channel’s Weather Geeks Podcast, which can be found at all podcast outlets. Prior to UGA, Dr. Shepherd spent 12 years as a Research Meteorologist at NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center and was Deputy Project Scientist for the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission. In 2004, he was honored at the White House with a prestigious PECASE award. He also has received major honors from the American Meteorological Society, American Association of Geographers, and the Captain Planet Foundation. Shepherd is frequently sought as an expert on weather and climate by major media outlets, the White House, and Congress. He has over 80 peer-reviewed scholarly publications and numerous editorials. Dr. Shepherd received his B.S., M.S. and PhD in physical meteorology from Florida State University.