Football weather in September, stadium by stadium

What a September Saturday feels like at each stadium, from every regular-season Saturday from Aug. 29 to Sept. 30 since 2018. Weather score: 0 to 100, higher is better. Ideal is 100, Comfortable 90 to 99, Mixed 75 to 89, Rough 50 to 74, Harsh under 50.

Best Septembers

Worst Septembers

All the stadiums, by group, in September

Stadiums within about 2 points of each other are effectively tied.

94 and upComfortable or better at about 8 in 10 September kickoffs, Rough or Harsh at fewer than 1 in 1022 stadiums

Weather score, out of 100

90 to 93Comfortable or better at about 7 in 10 September kickoffs, Rough or Harsh at about 1 in 1037 stadiums

Weather score, out of 100

86 to 89Comfortable or better at about 6 in 10 September kickoffs, Rough or Harsh at about 2 in 1022 stadiums

Weather score, out of 100

82 to 85Comfortable or better at about 5 in 10 September kickoffs, Rough or Harsh at about 3 in 1031 stadiums

Weather score, out of 100

81 and underComfortable or better at about 3 in 10 September kickoffs, Rough or Harsh at about 6 in 1055 stadiums

Weather score, out of 100

How these scores are made
  • The score is the Weather score, out of 100, for the 200 minutes starting at kickoff. It is averaged over every regular-season Saturday from Aug 29 to Dec 6, 2018 to 2025, and over noon, 3:30 and 7:30 starts.
  • Readings come from an airport weather station near each stadium, not from the stands. Shade, delays, smoke and indoor roofs are not in it. A few stadiums use an airport farther than the nearest one, because the nearest has too little history; their cards say how far.
  • The comfortable stretch of 60 to 75°F is our choice. Moving it changes the order, mostly among the hot places.
  • Stadiums near the same airport share a score. Ranks come with a range, because the eight-season average carries about a point of year-to-year noise; a single season can swing 2 to 3 points.
  • An airport reading can run warmer or cooler than the stands, and most for a stadium by a lake or the coast. Some airports missed a few kickoff times to outages, and those are left out, not filled in.
  • A few airports have a rain gauge that does not report rain. Where a working gauge sits within 25 km, the rain comes from it; where none does, the score has no rain term. The card says which.
  • It describes what these Saturdays were. It is not a forecast, and it says nothing about home advantage. Indoor stadiums are not scored.

Weather observations: National Weather Service, through the Iowa Environmental Mesonet at Iowa State University. Weather score version 2.2.