Weekly Weather Report

Weekly Weather Report

It's that time of the week again! Hump day has passed, and so I begin to look at the weekend and the Hokies' up upcoming opponent: The ECU Pirates.

Seeing as French does all of the football analysis and stuff much better than I can, I wanted to prepare you for what should be yet another BEAUTIFUL weekend of football.

Now Greenville NC is this wonderful little town that's home to those pesky pirates who always seem to give us a game that's a little too close for comfort. It's also got a climate that is very similar to Blacksburg's, although it's generally a little more humid. It's actually on average about 3% higher humidity per year, which is pretty significant. Luckily for us however, there is a multiple front system moving in. This multi-front system is made up of two cold fronts and is blowing in from the Midwest, bringing lots of cold air and rain down prior to the weekend.

Cold fronts and front boundaries tend to have differences in pressures which forces air convergence. This forced air convergence pushes the air upwards where it can attach to particulates to create clouds and thunderstorms. The higher up the air reaches the higher the cloud and generally the higher the cloud the more potential energy there is built up within the cloud and system.

Terrible weather, rain, and storms in general are typically made up between the boundaries of two frontal systems. The next two days in Greenville (and most of the Mid-Atlantic, for that matter) are going to be as rainy, dreary and gross as USC's offense was last weekend.

You may be asking yourself well why is this such great news? Well, for one, it means it's going to rain in Charlottesville, which is always a good thing, as it'll ruin all their Jeffersonian powdered wigs and whatnot.

For those of you who were concerned with our game this week, there are also a few other benefits. Because this cold air front is blowing in and through over the next two days, the high pressure system moving in behind it will be here in time for the weekend. If you didn't read last week high pressure system over the Mid-Atlantic = GOOD NEWS.

The news keeps getting better though! Because we're on the east side of the pressure front (which rotates clockwise) it's going to be a little cooler this time around! That being said, this is also a MASSIVE high pressure front that's bringing with it some of the cooler drier air from Canada. Add all this up, and it means this should be the first weekend that it begins to feel like fall up and down the east coast! Expect cooler weather and very dry air by Saturday. So, the drive down there may get a bit ugly, but come gameday, it should be perfect.

How the weather impacts the game-

We are fortunate this week, as just before we head into the typically more humid Coastal Carolina, we get a nice wave of storms to cut the humidity and make the temperatures quite pleasant. We'd be even more fortunate if the rain would stay, as we've all seen Mother Nature making even the best spread passing attacks look silly with some drizzle. Luckily for ECU, the rain and bad weather should be finished by Friday afternoon/night.
I think the crisp air and weather should make for a very interesting game and their offense will have no excuses if our D stuffs them. You should be able to expect great execution from both squads (or at least, you can't blame the weather if the execution is poor), and neither team should have any problems with cramping in these conditions. The field might still be a little damp but, after having nearly 24 hours to dry, I do not think it will be wet enough to prove significant for either team.
I expect our offense to have some pretty good rushing numbers against (up to this point) a pretty suspect D. Our defense should continue its recent dominance over the opponents and I think as long as Kyle Fuller shuts down their top WR (who is approaching numerous records for ECU) and our front 7 (or 8?) continues to play like they do we should have little trouble slowing them down. Our offense should be able to run the ball pretty well and the more I think about it the more I feel confident that our boys match up pretty well with ECU.

Final predictions

VT 27
ECU 13
High of 75 degrees
Low of 60 degrees
Low humidity
Little cloud cover
5 MPH gusts (tops) to the west or northwest

LETS GO!!!!!!!!