Story by
Chiefs vs. Bills playoff game weather forecast: Is any snow expected in Buffalo?
- Story by
- Chiefs vs. Bills playoff game weather forecast: Is any snow expected in Buffalo?
Credit the volunteers and stadium crew that slogged through nearly two feet of snow and gusty winds to prepare Highmark Stadium for the Buffalo Bills ' wild-card round victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers .
It looks as though they will have to do it again this week .
Advertisement
As the Bills prepare to host the Kansas City Chiefs in Sunday evening's divisional round playoff game , conditions are expected to be improved from last week, when New York Gov. Kathy Hochul had to postpone the wild-card round game , citing public safety concerns. On Jan. 14, the day the game was supposed to be played, a winter storm dumped around 17 inches of snow and lashed the area with blizzard conditions and wind gusts of up to 40 miles per hour. Hochul instituted travel bans and the Bills relied on volunteer snow shovelers to get the stadium in order for the rescheduled kickoff , Monday at 4:30 p.m. ET.
Once game time arrived, the NFL and Bills announced that there would be no assigned seating because of the volume of snow mounded on the seats, a first in NFL playoff history.
Against the Chiefs, fans should expect a more conventional experience.
Here's the latest information you need to know about Sunday's forecast in Orchard Park, N.Y.
Advertisement
NHL GAME POSTPONED: Blackhawks-Sabres moved to Thursday as heavy snow, travel ban hit Buffalo
Jan. 15, 2024: Snow covers Highmark Stadium before the AFC wild-card playoff game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Buffalo Bills. The Bills won the game, 31-17, after the contest was postponed a day due to a massive winter storm.
What is the weather for the Bills-Chiefs game?
After a lake effect snow warning was in affect earlier in the week for Western New York, which includes Orchard Park, the area is expected to get an additional 2-3 feet of snow between Thursday and Saturday night, according to Accuweather .
Sunday, though, the U.S. National Weather Service is forecasting a "warmup" , with a high temperature near 25 degrees. By comparison, Saturday's high temperature in Orchard Park is projected to be near 17 degrees. Wind gusts are expected to be about 7 to 13 miles per hour, per the NWS.
Advertisement
With kickoff scheduled for 6:30 p.m. ET, temperatures will cool as the day wears on, though the temperature is projected to be about 18 degrees at the start of the game. The NWS is calling only for mostly cloudy skies Sunday night.
It's been a week in which snow and wind swirled unabated, with the area already slammed with lake effect snow last weekend for the Bills-Steelers game .
Help wanted! Bills call on fans to help shovel snow
For the second week in a row , the Bills are calling on fans to help shovel snow at Highmark Stadium in preparation for the Bills' AFC divisional playoff game Sunday against the Kansas City Chiefs . Helpers will be compensated $20 an hour.
Advertisement
"We're going to need some snow shovelers (again)!" the Bills wrote on social media Thursday. "Help get Highmark Stadium ready for our Divisional Round playoff game."
About 2-8 inches of snow is forecast Friday and Saturday leading into Sunday's game against the Chiefs.
Last week, the Bills relied on volunteer shovelers to prepare the stadium for Monday's rescheduled wild-card playoff game against the Steelers after a winter storm dumped around 17 inches of snow in the Buffalo area.
How often do the Bills play in the snow?
Given Buffalo's location on the eastern tip of Lake Erie, arguably no NFL team has had to manage snowfall more than the Bills.
Advertisement
Conditions on the field for the Bills-Steelers game , however, weren't significantly impacted by that weekend's snow. The field had been almost entirely cleared and sidelines also remained fairly clean, though fans in the stands flung snow around to celebrate plays.
In November 2014, a winter storm unleashed almost seven feet of snow in Orchard Park, over a four-day span. Several of the team's players then had to be transported from their homes by snowmobile because conditions had made roads impassable. The NFL opted to relocate Buffalo's Week 12 game that year against the New York Jets – originally scheduled for Sunday, Nov. 23 in Orchard Park – to Ford Field in Detroit on Monday, Nov. 24. The Bills would go on to win, 38-3.
Eight years later, the NFL moved another Bills game to Detroit's Ford Field , this time in a preventative measure. The Bills played the Cleveland Browns there on Nov. 17, 2022, an eventual 31-23 Bills victory, because forecasts were projecting a winter storm to lash the region.
In a Dec. 7, 2021 game against the New England Patriots , it wasn't the snow as much as it was wind. Gusts of up to 40 mph whipped the area that day, as intermittent snow showers fell, leading to Patriots quarterback Mac Jones attempting just three passes. The Bills lost 14-10.
Contributing: Cydney Henderson
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Bills vs. Chiefs weather forecast: Is any snow expected in Buffalo?
