Super Bowl LVI 2022: what's the weather in Los Angeles on February 13 2022?
According to forecasts, Super Bowl LVI could be the hottest on record with temperatures in Inglewood reaching up to 82ºF on game day.
Super Bowl LVI will be staged at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles on Sunday 13 February, when the LA Rams will host the Cincinnati Bengals at their home stadium (despite being designated as the away team). It will be the seventh time in NFL history that the showpiece game has been held in the Greater Los Angeles metropolitan region, following Super Bowls I, VII, XI, XIV, XVII, XXI and XXVII, and the first in almost 30 years.
SoFi Stadium in Inglewood will be hosting the Super Bowl for the first time, following its inauguration in September 2020, and can hold just over 100,000 spectators for major sporting events. What can fans expect on the day in terms of weather?
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As of Thursday 10 February, the LA area is basking in a mini-heatwave, with temperatures in Inglewood expected to reach 88ºF three days before the game, according to weather.com.
Fortunately for the players, temperatures are expected to drop leading up to Sunday, with a maximum of 82ºF (27.7ºC) expected on Super Bowl Day. The Santa Ana winds buffeting the area in the run-up to the game are also expected to subside, with westerly winds of 5-10mph anticipated when the Bengals and Rams take to the field. That will be a relief to the quarterbacks considering the windiest Super Bowl on record, XIV when the Steelers beat the Rams in Pasadena, recorded gusts of up to 30mph. Humidity on Sunday will be relatively low at 23%, but rising to 39% in the evening, with a zero-percentage possibility of rain.
The hottest Super Bowl on record?
That is well above the monthly average of 65ºF for February in Inglewood and weather.com anticipates Super Bowl LVI could be the hottest on record, beating the previous record set in 2003 when the Oakland Raiders and Tampa Bay Buccaneers faced off at the Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego. Temperatures that day topped out at 82ºF.
The mercury hit the same level during Super Bowl VII, which was staged at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on 14 January, 1973 and where the Dolphins completed the only perfect NFL season in history at the expense of the Washington Redskins.
The coldest Super Bowl on record was VI at the Tulane Stadium in New Orleans, where the Cowboys defeated the Dolphins in temperatures of 43ºF (just over 6ºC).
The Ice Bowl
That is nothing compared to the infamous Ice Bowl, the 1967 NFL Championship Game between the Packers and the Cowboys at Lambeau Field. On that New Year’s Day, temperatures in Green Bay at game time dipped to −13°F (−25°C), with a brutal wind chill factor and a frozen pitch adding to the players’ discomfort after the turf heating system at Lambeau Field failed.
Ray Nitschke and game MVP Bart Starr (Packers) and George Andrie, Willie Townes and Dick Daniels (Cowboys) all suffered frostbite as a result of the game, with linebacker Nitschke’s toenails falling off.