Columbus football forecast: Heat and rain in the mix for high school, Ohio State games
A hot and humid airmass will continue to impact our area through the end of the work week and into the upcoming weekend. The good news is, relief is in sight with a cold front on Saturday. The bad news... we could end up dealing with wet weather, including the chance of thunderstorms on Saturday as well.
Football Friday Nite forecast
At this point, it does appear that rain and storm chances will pop-up during the day on Friday, but with the loss of the peak heating, this activity should wane a bit for Friday evening.
This will keep humidity cranked up, but turn down the rain chances for Friday evening for week 2 of Football Friday Nite.
Buckeyes Saturday forecast
The forecast for Saturday continues to slow down the next stronger cold front a bit more, and this means, that rain and storms will be possible during the tailgating hours on Saturday, and potentially during the game as well.
The upside to this part of the forecast, is temps will not be as oppressive as they have been this work week. I anticipate an abundance of clouds on Saturday, and this will be helpful to keep temps in the low to mid 80s for the game on Saturday.
Historically speaking, an average start to the season
Looking at data from the year 2000 to 2023 for the Buckeyes home openers, this year will fall just about in the middle. Our coldest home opener since 2000, happened in the quirky 2020 COVID season, when the home opener was on October 24th, so obviously, this would likely be one of the coldest home openers. That day the high only hit 53 degrees, most years, we are in the 70s, 80s, or 90s at the home opener as games are starting in late August, to early September.
| Year | Date | High | Low | Rain |
| 2000 | 9/2 | 87° | 71° | .03" |
| 2001 | 9/8 | 86° | 70° | .22° |
| 2002 | 8/24 | 85° | 70° | |
| 2003 | 8/30 | 73° | 62° | 2.64" |
| 2004 | 9/4 | 84° | 66° | |
| 2005 | 9/3 | 79° | 57° | |
| 2006 | 9/2 | 66° | 57° | .02" |
| 2007 | 9/1 | 81° | 56° | |
| 2008 | 8/30 | 86° | 68° | |
| 2009 | 9/5 | 81° | 56° | |
| 2010 | 9/2 | 94° | 67° | |
| 2011 | 9/3 | 97° | 72° | |
| 2012 | 9/1 | 86° | 74° | .07" |
| 2013 | 8/31 | 87° | 71° | .79" |
| 2014 | 9/6 | 80° | 62° | .01" |
| 2015 | 9/12 | 67° | 54° | .19" |
| 2016 | 9/3 | 79° | 57° | |
| 2017 | 9/9 | 72° | 50° | |
| 2018 | 9/1 | 85° | 70° | .38" |
| 2019 | 8/31 | 78° | 65° | |
| 2020 | 10/24 | 53° | 41° | T |
| 2021 | 9/11 | 80° | 54° | |
| 2022 | 9/3 | 74° | 68° | .22" |
| 2023 | 9/9 | 89° | 70° |
-Dave