Weatherman projects how potential Hurricane Helene could impact college football's Week 5 slate
Weather could impact the college football Week 5 slate, according to meteorologist James Spann. A potential tropical storm or hurricane named Helene is forming in the Caribbean and is expected to make landfall later this week.
Spann reports that Helene is expected “to be a category two hurricane with winds of 110 mph at the time of landfall.” However, he adds that it could end up being a category three hurricane or even higher.
As of now, he doesn’t expect the impact on college football games to be too severe. But he warned that forecasts can change quickly, particularly with a storm that is still forming.
“For the college football games Saturday in Alabama, we expect just scattered showers,” Spann said. “No high wind, no especially heavy rain.”
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There are already hurricane and tropical storm watches in effect for parts of Mexico and Cuba, according to reports. Those are expected to extend to the United States in the coming days.
Helene is expected to hit Florida as soon as Thursday, per The Weather Channel. The Weather Channel adds that “impacts could push well inland in parts of the South into Friday.”
Due to the uncertainty of potential Hurricane Helene, The Weather Channel says that the coast of Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi could be in the path. That of course means that a large portion of the Southeast could be impacted once it pushes inland.
Some of the college football games that could be impacted by potential Hurricane Helene with at least heavy rain and some wind are Miami hosting Virginia Tech on Friday night, North Carolina playing at Duke on Saturday afternoon, Clemson hosting Stanford on Saturday night, Alabama hosting Georgia Saturday night, Auburn hosting Oklahoma on Saturday afternoon and Kentucky at Ole Miss on Saturday afternoon.
The biggest game of the weekend and one of the biggest games of the year will be Georgia at Alabama. The two teams will play on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. The game will be televised by ABC.
The Bulldogs and Crimson Tide are two of the top teams in the country and both are ranked in the top 5. The winner of this game will be in a good spot for the College Football Playoff and potentially an SEC title.
The hope is that the storm will lessen and not become a hurricane and that everyone will stay safe and games can be played as scheduled on Friday and Saturday.