The best decision made by big league baseball is to not schedule a home game in Boston until next week (Tuesday, April 9th). The Red Sox have been on the road to open the 2024 baseball season and it is a good thing. Not only has there been plenty of rain up in New England during the past few days, but snow can mix into the picture during the next couple of days. Looking ahead, the weather settles down later this weekend across the Northeast US including in Boston, and it might just turn out quite decent by the time next Tuesday rolls around for the Red Sox home opener.
The chill across the NE US will continue through the rest of the week and similar colder-than-normal conditions have dominated the Midwest, Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic region this week. A couple of weeks ago we mentioned here the likelihood for additional cold air outbreaks to make their way from Canada into the US as March turns to April and that kind of pattern has indeed impacted many northern baseball towns from Chicago to New York. Not only has it been quite cold relative-to-normal across the northeastern quadrant of the nation, but similar conditions have persisted in much of the western US. In fact, a reinforcing shot of colder-than-normal air will push into California by the end of this week and it’ll stick around right through the upcoming weekend.
As a result of the early season chill, there have been many games played with low Home Run Forecast (HRF) Index values involving such teams as the Phillies, Orioles, Cubs, White Sox and Mets and there have been no games so far with an average HRFI of 9 or 10. That could all change this Friday when the Rockies play their home opener in Denver. Temperatures there on Friday afternoon could surge to the 70’s and a strong wind blowing out could generate an average HRFI of 9 or 10…for the first time this season. The weather is least favorable for hitting home runs when the HRF index is on the low side such as 1 or 2 and most favorable when the index is 9 or 10.
Meteorologist Paul Dorian