The National Football League released its full 2025-2026 schedule on May 14,and while fans eagerly checked how tough their favorite team's road is this year,they may not have given as much thought to how challenging the weather may be.
As both a meteorologist and lifelong NFL fan,I love games affected by weather,such as last January's snowy NFC divisional playoff in Philadelphia between the host Eagles and the warm-weather Los Angeles Rams.
Meteorologists can't predict the weather for any game months in advance. But using data such as average high temperatures,and days with rain and snowfall,we calculated which of the 32 NFL teams could have the warmest,coldest,wettest,even snowiest schedules in 2025. We did not include games played in stadiums either with domes or retractable roofs in our calculations,but did include six of the seven games played in Europe (Madrid's Bernabéu Stadium has a retractable roof). We'll refer to the games we included in our calculations as "outdoor games".
Based on this,we also picked our top 5 games that could have the most interesting weather in 2025.
The Warmest Five
Average high temperature for outdoor games in 2025:
1. Tampa Bay Buccaneers:73.9 degrees
2. Jacksonville Jaguars:71.5 degrees
3. Miami Dolphins:70 degrees
4. New Orleans Saints:67.1 degrees
5. Carolina Panthers:67 degrees
No big surprise,here. The three Florida teams will probably play the warmest schedule. They have three home games in the central Florida heat from late September through mid-October. And their "coldest"game after Thanksgiving may be a trip to Charlotte against the Carolina Panthers just before Christmas.
Sneaky warm schedule: While only the 13th warmest NFL schedule,of their seven outdoor games,the Detroit Lions trip to Green Bay is on the opening Sunday Sept. 7,and after mid-November,the Lions only game outdoors will be the first weekend of January in Chicago.
The Coldest Five
Average high temperature for outdoor games in 2025:
1. Green Bay Packers:51.8 degrees
2. Chicago Bears:54.3 degrees
3. Cleveland Browns:55.3 degrees
4. Minnesota Vikings:55.8 degrees
5. Pittsburgh Steelers:56.1 degrees
Again,not a surprising list,here. The Packers don't play a single outdoor road game in a warmer climate in 2025,unless they make the playoffs. In fact their December schedule has two home games,and road games in cold cities,Denver,then Chicago. Of Minnesota's six outdoor games,two are in cooler Dublin and London,two are in late November in Green Bay and Seattle,and another is late December in the New Jersey Meadowlands.
Sneaky cold schedule: While they play the fewest outdoor games (four) of any NFL team this year,the Arizona Cardinals will make an early November trip to Seattle,and will travel to Cincinnati in late December. That bumped them to the middle of the pack - 16th coldest - schedule.
The Wettest Five
Monthly average days with measurable rain or snow for outdoor games in 2025:
1. Buffalo Bills:13 days
2. Seattle Seahawks:12.3 days
3. Cleveland Browns:12.1 days
4. Miami Dolphins:11.9 days
5. Pittsburgh Steelers:11.6 days
We'll come back to the Bills shortly. Again,no surprise to see the Seattle Seahawks near the top of this list. By the time October rolls around,measurable rain typically falls 14 days during the month,then 18 days each in November and December. Miami can also be drenched by thunderstorms early in the season before the state's drier season arrives in November and December.
Sneaky wet schedule: The L.A. Rams play in the comfy,largely climate-controlled confines of SoFi Stadium. But their seven outdoor game schedule landed them the 14th wettest,including mid-September road games in Nashville and Philadelphia,a mid-October game in London,and a date in Seattle a week before Christmas. Fortunately for the Rams,that Seattle game is their only outdoor game after November unless they make the playoffs.
The Snowiest Five
Monthly average days with measurable snow for outdoor games in 2025:
1. Buffalo Bills:4.4 days
2. Cleveland Browns:3.2 days
3. Green Bay Packers:2.92 days
4. Pittsburgh Steelers:2.86 days
5. Chicago Bears and Denver Broncos (tie):2.5 days
The resiliency of the Bills'fans helping to clear snow,the pure joy of the players (well,at least the Bills players),and the snow globe spectacle make a Bills game in the snow the most enjoyable sporting event to me,except for one of those involving my favorite team,the Packers. That incredible lake-effect snow factory known as Lake Erie usually wrings out one snowy Bills game every 1 to 2 years. That's why they're number one on our list. If the lake snow machine is open for business early enough,it could welcome the warm-weather Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Nov. 16.
Sneaky snowy schedule: Incredibly,the L.A. Chargers schedule came in 10th on our snowiest list. They only have seven outdoor games,but two of them are in Kansas City on December 14,then in Denver the first weekend of January. After their either warm-weather city or indoor game schedule through early December,that could be a harsh dose of winter reality for Jim Harbaugh's squad.
Five Potentially Big Weather Games
Given all this,here are the games that grabbed my attention most for their weather potential.
5. New York Jets at Tampa Bay Buccaneers (Sept. 21):I'm always interested to see how northern teams deal with the heat. Tampa's average high on Sept. 21 is 90 degrees. Not to mention the ever-present chance of afternoon thunderstorms in central Florida.
4. Minnesota Vikings at Seattle Seahawks (Nov. 30):It's a Midwest team from a climate-controlled stadium traveling to Seattle during its wettest month of the year. What could possibly go wrong,except Seattle now has Minnesota's quarterback from last year.
3. Miami Dolphins at New England Patriots (first weekend of January):Flipping the script of number 5 above,I'll circle any outdoor game in a cold weather location involving a Florida team traveling north,even if neither team is in the playoff race.
2. Green Bay Packers at Denver Broncos (Dec. 14):The cold and snow potential of this is just too tantalizing,apart from the possibility of each team in the playoff race. A mid-October 1984 "Broncos blizzard" was one of the most legendary snow games in NFL history. Incredibly,the Broncos only two touchdowns of that game were on consecutive fumble returns for touchdowns to start the game,the only time in NFL history a defense scored twice on its first two plays from scrimmage.
1. Buffalo Bills at Cleveland Browns (Dec. 21):If I could give the NFL schedule makers a group hug,I would cover this one game. It's the two snowiest NFL outdoor cities facing off - wait for it - four days before Christmas. I mean,consider what happened on Dec. 16,2007,not only snow but also whipped by wind gusts up to 43 mph. I'm begging CBS to put this as their national game if the weather is anything like that this year. Consider it an early Christmas present to the legions of NFL fans who also love wild weather.
How We Calculated All This
We don't have average hourly temperature data where we could hone in on the actual kickoff temperatures for,say,night games. So,the closest proxy we had for the warmest and coldest schedules was the average high temperature on the day of the game.
The exception to this was for the international games. For those,we only had monthly average high temperatures to use.
For precipitation and snow,daily average rain and snowfall data is essentially meaningless for ranking. That data simply divides the average monthly precipitation by the number of days. While average monthly rainfall total has some value delineating wetter and drier times of year,for this analysis,we were more interested in how often it rains or snows. Therefore,we used the monthly average number of days with measurable rain (at least .01 inches) or snow (at least 0.1 inches).
We did not have access to any snowfall data for the international game sites.
Jonathan Erdman is a senior meteorologist at www.weathernow24.com and has been covering national and international weather since 1996. Extreme and bizarre weather are his favorite topics. Reach out to him on Bluesky,X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook.
