What this is
CFB Weather publishes an hour-by-hour kickoff forecast for every FBS and FCS college football game, from Week 0 through the playoff. Each game gets a card on the weekly slate, a page with the forecast around kickoff, a short weather report, the series history and what the weather did at the stadium in past seasons. Team pages carry the full schedule with a forecast on every game; stadium pages carry the typical weather by month and the game-day history.
Forecasts update on a schedule tied to kickoff: every six hours more than a week out, every two hours inside a week, hourly inside two days and every thirty minutes on game day. Kickoff times are shown in your time zone with the stadium's local time alongside when it differs.
The Weather Impact Index
Every outdoor game gets one number from 0 to 100 for how much the weather should change the football. It adds six components, each capped, from the forecast between kickoff and roughly three and a half hours later:
| Component | Max | How it scores |
|---|---|---|
| Rain | 35 | Highest hourly rain chance during the game, scaled by how much rain is expected: a trace counts less than half a rainy day. |
| Wind | 30 | Sustained wind starts counting at 12 mph and reaches full weight at 25 mph; gusts over 30 mph add 5 points, over 40 mph add 10. |
| Temperature | 20 | Wind chill at or below 32°F, 20°F and 5°F scores 8, 14 and 20; heat index at or above 90°F, 95°F and 100°F scores the same. |
| Storms | 25 | Thunder in the forecast window scores the full 25; unstable air with a meaningful rain chance scores 8 or 15. |
| Snow | 20 | Snowfall of 0.2, 1 and 3 inches during the game scores 8, 14 and 20. |
| Visibility | 10 | Fog below a mile scores 10; below two and a half miles scores 5. |
The sum is capped at 100 and labelled: 0–19 Clear sailing 20–39 Minor factor 40–59 Notable 60–79 Major factor 80–100 Severe. Domes and retractable roofs score 0 and are labelled Indoors; their cards still show the outside conditions for tailgating and travel.
Flags next to the score call out the specific hazards: rain (40% chance or more), heavy rain, wind (18 mph sustained), gusts (30 mph), cold (wind chill at or below freezing), bitter cold (14°F), heat (heat index 90°F), storm risk, snow, fog, and kickoff TBD when the time is not yet set.
Game weather reports
Inside six days of kickoff, outdoor games with a set kickoff time get a short written report: the weather story of the game, two to four factors, and what it means for passing, kicking, running and the people in the seats. Every number in the report is checked against the forecast data before it is published; a report that states a number we do not have is not shown. When no report exists the page lists the plain facts from the impact index instead.
Data sources
- Open-Meteo provides the hourly forecast and the historical archive behind typical-weather tables and past game-day conditions. Weather data by Open-Meteo.com, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- CollegeFootballData.com provides the schedule, venues, rankings, team records, betting lines and series history. Data from CollegeFootballData.com, used under its API terms with attribution.
- ESPN public scoreboard feeds provide live scores and team logos. Scores and logos are the property of ESPN and the schools and appear here for identification only.
Times are stored in UTC and rendered in the stadium's zone on the server and in yours in the browser. Measurements are stored in metric and shown in US units by default; the °F / °C switch in the header flips every number on the page.
Contact
Wrong kickoff time, venue or score? Use the Feedback link in the footer and pick "Wrong data"; reports go straight to the person who runs the site. For anything else, the same form works.
CFB Weather is an independent site. It is not affiliated with the NCAA, any conference, any school, ESPN or the College Football Playoff.