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Updraft® - Minnesota Weather News
Paul Huttner

Purple Pain: Minnesota will host the coldest Super Bowl ever

NOAA GFS 2-meter air temperature output for Super Bowl Sunday via tropical tidbits.

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Congratulations Minnesota! You're about to host the coldest Super Bowl on record.

By far.

Temperatures in the Twin Cities will plunge to between -10 and -15 around the Twin Cities early Sunday morning. Thermometers will likely struggle to rise much above the zero mark Super Bowl Sunday. That will make this the coldest Super Bowl in any host city on record.

1 29 coldest Super Bowl
NOAA National Digital Forecast Database temperatures forecast for Minneapolis via Weather Bell.

The coldest Super Bowl on record was also played indoors in Pontiac, Mich., in 1982. The high temperature outside the Pontiac Silverdome was 16 degrees. The Twin Cities high somewhere near zero this Sunday will blow that number out of the (frozen) water.

Purple Pain

To my eye this National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Global Forecast System model 2-meter air temperature loop may not be far off the mark for Super Bowl Sunday.

I think the Twin Cities may hover near the zero mark at game-time. The weather maps will be bathed in purple Sunday. Poetic justice for a state that identifies with the Vikings and Prince perhaps?

1 29 t2
NOAA GFS 2-meter air temperature output for Super Bowl Sunday via tropical tidbits.

Coldest on record

Sunday's inbound arctic air mass should have no problem cementing Minnesota as the cold weather Super Bowl champion. Here are some cold hard Super Bowl weather facts.

  • According to NOAA's Southeast Regional Climate Center the coldest Super Bowl on record was also played indoors in Pontiac, Mich., in 1982. The high temperature was 16 degrees.

  • The second coldest Super Bowl was also played in Minneapolis inside the Metrodome. High temperature 26 degrees.

  • The coldest outdoor Super Bowl game was played in New Orleans in 1972. High temperature 43 degrees.

  • The warmest Super Bowl? Super Bowl Vll in Los Angeles. High temperature a balmy 84 degrees.

Subzero wind chills

Factor in the wind Sunday and it will feel well below zero all day. Here's the wind chill map for 1 p.m. Sunday as fans are celebrating their way to the big game.

A1 29 pparentT51_uppermissvly
NOAA

No doubt the national media will have a field day with our legendary cold Sunday. Minnesota might just earn our reputation back as the Icebox of the Nation.

Welcome to The Frozen Tundra.