Zoomin’ around with Zoe: A history of Super Bowl game day weather in California

By CBS Bay Area

The Bay Area really lucked out with the weather across the region this weekend, but how does this year stack up to past Super Bowls? 

This is the Bay Area’s 3rd time hosting the Super Bowl. The first was hosted at Stanford in 1985, with the temperature at kickoff a chilly 53 degrees. The first Super Bowl in Levi’s Stadium, however, was 10 years ago in 2016, when the weather was even warmer than this year, 76 degrees at kickoff. 

But it’s California’s 14th time hosting the Super Bowl, and not a single raindrop fell at any of those games. In fact, the top three hottest kickoff temperatures on record all happened in Southern California: 84 degrees at the LA Coliseum in 1973, 82 at SoFi Stadium in 2022, and 81 at Qualcomm Stadium, San Diego in 2003. 

And an honorable mention to the wettest game played, 2007 at Miami, where about 1 inch of rain fell, and winds gusted 20 mph. 

But the regular football season is warming significantly across the country. In fact, all 30 NFL cities have warmed from September to December by an average of 2.8 degrees since 1970. The Raiders in Las Vegas and Vikings in Minneapolis observed the most warming, 5.1 and 5, respectively. 

For this year’s matchup, the Seattle Seahawks warmed by 1.7 while the New England Patriots warmed by 2.3. But the Bay Area’s regular football season has warmed more than both of those areas since 1970, by over 3 degrees!

So, it’s nice we’ve been this warm in the Bay Area for the big game, with a high of about 66 degrees expected.