Lightning Strikes Football

Welcome back to The Signal, our Wednesday column that identifies the trends and reveals the insights that are changing the game in sports and beyond. 

One of the themes we'll be looking at this football season is how the climate is impacting the sport we all love. This weekend, weather was the big story in the college and pro football. In Tennessee, the artificial-turf temperature reached 157 degrees and melted cleats during the Titans-Eagles game, and lightning flashes delayed several games in the Southeast. 

This week, we're diving deeper on these lightning strikes: why were they so widespread, why are the delays so long, and what do many fans and broadcasters get wrong about lightning?

The Clemson-North Carolina game on Saturday began at noon with the Bill Belichick-led Tar Heels taking an early 17-3 lead in this matchup of two ACC teams that played their first game in 1897. With 8:11 remaining in the fourth quarter after Clemson had scored 12 unanswered points to bring the game to 17-15, play was halted due to lightning detected within an eight-mile radius of Clemson’s Memorial Stadium. Shortly after play resumed at 5:25 pm following a two-hour-and-21-minute delay, Clemson took their first lead with a nine-yard touchdown run by Gideon Davidson and went on to win 28-20. 

It was Clemson’s third-straight game this season interrupted by weather. They started their season with a two-hour lightning delay before a 51-10 thumping by LSU in Baton Rouge. Then on Sept. 12, the Tigers faced another two-hour lightning delay before the start of their win over Georgia Southern.  

Clemson’s most recent lightning delay came on a weekend when at least six games across major college football and the NFL experienced the same fate, mostly in the Southeast. In perhaps the cruelest serving by Mother Nature, the Cleveland Browns and Tampa Bay Buccaneers were forced on Sunday to wait more than two hours to finish the last two minutes of their game.

For perspective on these lightning delays, Box Score turned to Darren Clabo, the South Dakota State Fire Meteorologist and an Associate Professor of Practice at South Dakota Mines.  

Box Score: Was this past weekend's cluster of delays (Alabama, Clemson, South Carolina, Tampa Bay) driven by a specific synoptic pattern, or is this just ordinary late-summer Southeast convection that happens to coincide with the start of football season?

Darren: A weak upper-level ridge over the Lower Mississippi Valley on Saturday brought unusually light winds throughout the atmosphere and contributed to the weekend's abnormal heat (8°–20°F above average). Meanwhile, easterly surface winds pushed humid Atlantic air into the Southeast, and that hot, humid near-surface air fueled atmospheric instability, triggering strong, isolated-to-scattered thunderstorms. Because winds aloft were so light, storms moved slowly or barely at all—likely a key reason lightning delays ran long. Along the coast, the same easterly flow pushed the sea breeze farther inland than usual, which may have helped spark additional storm development.

Box Score: How does the Southeast’s afternoon/evening thunderstorm climatology compare to other football-heavy regions (Big Ten country and the Southwest) in terms of raw lightning-delay risk by kickoff time?

Darren: The Southeast has a relatively high lightning frequency this time of the year (early/mid September) compared to other areas, especially in the vicinity of the Gulf and the Atlantic. The Desert Southwest typically sees lightning activity at this time owing to the Southwest monsoon. These areas have more lightning, climatologically speaking, at this time compared to the Big Ten areas.

Box Score: The most lightning-prone large U.S. outdoor stadiums are Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Kyle Field in College Station, Texas, and the Cotton Bowl Stadium in Dallas, Texas, according to a 2025 nationwide lightning analytics study. Tiger Stadium in Louisiana was the most exposed with 19,346 flashes and Beaver Stadium in Pennsylvania was the least with just 4,396. Can you give us some perspective on these findings? 

Darren: We’d have to dig deeper into the data and examine how many of those flashes occurred during the football season and how many of those flashes occurred at normal playing times. Any given stadium only holds 6-10 home games per year, which dramatically diminishes the overall threat.

Box Score: Fans at several of the games over the weekend were upset at the length of delays. How should a stadium operations team explain to a typical fan or broadcaster about why the delay has to last as long as it does?

Darren: Lightning by nature is unpredictable in where it will strike. Meteorologists and emergency managers must take a cautious approach. Lightning has been known to strike 10-20 miles away from the parent thunderstorm and when storms are within that radius, precautionary measures are generally taken.

I think the biggest thing that the public needs to understand when dealing with lightning-related delays is that there is considerable effort put in when deciding a delay or a cancellation. The decision process has likely already started days prior to the game when inclement weather is forecast. It’s not something decision makers take lightly and they absolutely know it can be frustrating for fans. Lightning presents a formidable problem to event planners: it strikes instantaneously in unpredictable locations and is a proven killer.  

Box Score: Both the NCAA and the NFL have strict guidelines about lightning at outdoor games. The NCAA requires that play be halted immediately if a lightning strike occurs within an 8-mile radius and the NFL uses a 10-mile radius standard. Why is this standard important or is there a better standard you would suggest?

Darren: These both are acceptable “industry” standards and this range is what I use for my recommendations in both my consulting work and as an operational wildfire meteorologist. Common standards among outdoor event planners lessen confusion for the public. The one problem with these standards is that the first lightning strike from a storm can be the one that causes a fatality. I consider the potential for lightning to be just as important as observed lightning.

Box Score: Is there any longer-term trend data on lightning frequency or convective intensity in the Southeast during August–September that would explain why this is becoming a more frequent disruption to the football season specifically, or does it just feel more frequent because of broadcast/social-media visibility?

Darren: I have not seen any data that would support more or less lightning this year as compared to previous years. There is some evidence that the observed increase in temperatures is leading to more lightning strikes as thunderstorm and heavy-precipitation frequency increases with temperature. I do, however, think this is likely more of a visibility issue as cameras and social media are everywhere.

Box Score: If you were advising a stadium full of fans instead of a fire crew, what's the one thing about lighting risk that you think most people get wrong?

Darren: The most common way to get injured or killed by lightning is by impacts due to ground current, not from directly getting struck. Lightning can strike a nearby object and the resulting electric potential on the surface can injure or kill people within the vicinity as the current travels up from the ground and through the body. Metal bleachers are very good electrical conductors, leading to higher risks of dangerous “ground” currents in stadiums.

Box Score: Would you get rid of metal bleachers at football stadiums?

Darren: That is literally the multimillion-dollar question. I think it is a cost-benefit issue with likely significant costs. Simply removing the metal bleachers doesn’t remove the overhead lightning threat, it only takes away one—maybe small—piece of that threat. ⚡

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