Weather won’t be a player in the Eagles game Sunday. It might even feel balmy.
Temperatures for the NFC championship game at Lincoln Financial Field are forecast to be around 40 degrees, with no chance of snow. Philly trails New Orleans badly in seasonal snow totals.
All thermal comfort being relative, for tailgaters, for the players, for whoever all those people are on the sidelines, and the 67,000 or so crammed into Lincoln Financial Field Sunday for the NFC championship game, Sunday may feel like a spring break.
Temperatures during the Eagles-Washington Commanders game, which begins at 3 p.m., are forecast to be in the upper 30s to near 40.
While that actually may be a tick below the normal for a Jan. 25, “Compared to what it’s been like, it’s going to feel warmer,” said Joe DeSilva, meteorologist at the National Weather Service Office in Mount Holly.
Winds are expected to be light, and from the warmer southwest, and the precipitation probability is listed at absolute 0 through Sunday.
After one wild and frigid week, winter is taking a breather
It was a week in which an official 8 inches of snow fell upon Super Bowl host city New Orleans — triple the old record. “That’s a little weird, isn’t it,” said Hannah Linsey, a meteorologist with the New Orleans/Baton Rouge office.
Subzero readings were common across the nation, and the Philly region experienced its coldest run of January in several years under an Arctic air mass.
Now, the atmosphere evidently is ready for a winter break. Moderating temperatures are forecast for much of the country as polar air heads back where it came from.
Readings were expected to approach 30 degrees in Philly on Thursday afternoon, about 10 degrees higher than on Wednesday, and freezing on Saturday.
The highs for both Sunday and Monday are expected to be around 40 degrees; the normal high on both days is 41. No snow is in the forecast, and no precipitation of any kind.
Looking ahead, for the Jan. 30 through Feb. 5 period, NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center sees odds favoring below normal temperatures only in New England and the far Northwest.
Is any snow in the near future for Philadelphia?
Computer models have been hinting at another cold shot late next week, but no snow threats, virtual or otherwise, have been evident.
So far, that 2.0 inches that fell Sunday when the Eagles advanced to the NFC title game has been the biggest snow of the season. The seasonal total stands at 4.9 inches.
In short, Philly has some catching up to do with New Orleans, where the natives behaved quite well during the wintry siege, Lisney said, adding, “everybody stayed off the roads, which was good to see.
“A lot of people were excited.”
For her part, she said, she was not terribly impressed: “I’m from Wisconsin.”