Weather forecast for Super Bowl XLV looks fine so far

For Super Bowl Sunday, think cool but not frigid, with a slight chance of rain, but no snow or ice. Basically, look for a day that by February standards in Green Bay , Chicago , New York or Pittsburgh would be considered pretty darned nice outside the stadium. (There’s no chance of snow inside Cowboys Stadium.)

Of course, the forecast comes with a major disclaimer: By the time Feb. 6 rolls around, there’s a reasonable chance nothing in the preceding sentences will turn out to be true. With the big game at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington still more than two weeks off, meteorologists saw the first computer model for Feb. 6 weather conditions on Friday afternoon. And they didn’t feel particularly comfortable using it as the basis for a forecast.

“Anything I tell you is going to be so generic it really will mean nothing,” said Eric Martello, a senior analyst for the National Weather Service in Fort Worth. Brian Edwards, of AccuWeather in State College, Pa., said that the Global Forecast System computer model looks so far forward “that its next run could show something completely different.”

For now, though, based on this most preliminary data, North Texas organizers of Super Bowl XLV have to be smiling. While it’s true the weather inside Cowboys Stadium will be perfect no matter what, the prospect of thousands of football fans slip-sliding along local highways after a freak ice storm during Super Bowl week was certainly a concern.

This first bit of weather data offered at least some assurances. “If this pattern was to hold up, it wouldn’t be overly cold or wet” on Super Bowl Sunday, Martello said. “We could see southerly winds and temperatures well-above freezing. “Right now, if things stay like this, it wouldn’t be a bad day.” The normal daytime high temperature on Feb. 6 is 58, according to the National Weather Service. Edwards said he expects it to be cooler than that this year, maybe 10 or 15 degrees cooler, “but I don’t see it in the 30s,” he said.

“And for anyone coming down from New York, Pittsburgh, Chicago or Green Bay, the 40s will feel pretty good.”