A snowy day against MSU in March ‘09
Fans and friends who had heard about Illinois baseball’s early home date of February 20 have been asking me about it. Typical questions are “Are they holding in inside?’”, “Is it a typo on the schedule?”, and “Are they crazy?”.
Well, as to that last bit, it would seem so. In the last few days here in Urbana, we’ve suffered somewhere between 3-4 inches of snow with sub-freezing temps. And we have less than two weeks to go before the season starts. But maybe it’s not quite as crazy as it seems. A friend of mine who is a bit of a weather aficionado pointed out some interesting weather facts regarding Central Illinois weather.
According to the Illinois State Water Survey, who know about such things, we could see a surge in the temperature if long term averages are any indication. The average high temperature for this time of the year (February 9) is a nasty 34 degrees. Now fast forward to February 20, the scheduled date of the home opener… Believe it or not, the average high for that date is a balmy 43. Whoa! Time to put on those bikinis, eh?
Now, I’ve been to home games at Illinois games in late March and early April when it was in the 30s and snowing. Let’s keep our hopes up that we can get a decent opening day where we’re just shivering the whole game and not have to cancel.