Freezer Bowl II? Close but Not Quite

(Jan. 8) -- Winter weather and football go together as perfectly as, well, Monday night and football. With the all-important playoff games being played in the heart of winter, often in outdoor stadiums, sometimes the harsh weather becomes one of the legendary stars.

That was certainly the case in Cincinnati, when Arctic air greeted the hometown Bengals for a playoff game on Jan. 10, 1982.

Wait a minute. Arctic air ... playoffs ... Cincinnati ... January. Are we sure we're not talking about 2010?

The weather will certainly be harsh Saturday afternoon for the NFL playoff game between Cincinnati and the New York Jets. And while this weekend's game will no doubt be nostalgically compared to the 1982 "Freezer Bowl," it won't be quite as cold in Mother Nature's Frigidaire this time.

During the 1982 contest, the game-time temperature was a body-numbing minus 9 degrees Fahrenheit. The Bengals, led by quarterback Kenny Anderson, tried to warm the hearts (if nothing else) of their fans with a 27-7 rout of the San Diego Chargers to earn a trip to the Super Bowl.

For this weekend's game, the Arctic air won't be as intense. Saturday's daytime high in Cincinnati is expected to be close to 20 degrees, so the temperature will most likely be in the teens at kickoff. A noticeable northerly breeze (around 10 mph) will make the harsh air feel even colder.

The wind removes moisture from our bodies, and evaporation is a cooling process. Therefore, we feel colder than what the actual air temperature might indicate when it's windy. It's quantified by the wind chill, and the wind chill for Saturday's game will be close to five degrees.

The wind chill was a much bigger problem for the "Freezer Bowl." The combination of a high pressure system -- the one that delivered the cold air -- and a powerful storm in eastern Canada resulted in a strong north wind in Cincinnati. The wind was approximately 25 mph at kick-off, resulting in a wind chill of nearly 40 degrees below zero, by today's calculations. (Based on the calculations used at that time, which are now outdated, the wind chill was 59 below.)

That's the type of cold that creates legends.

Legends like Vince Lombardi, Bart Starr and Don Meredith, who were part of the coldest NFL game ever played, in terms of air temperature (not wind chill). This NFL championship game between the Green Bay Packers (who won) and the Dallas Cowboys was played at Lambeau Field in Green Bay on Dec. 31, 1967. The temperature was minus 19 degrees.

Other noteworthy weather games include two games in Foxboro, Mass., the home of the New England Patriots: the so-called "Snowplow Bowl" between the Patriots and Miami Dolphins on Dec. 12, 1982, (not a playoff game) and the "Snow Bowl" (or "Tuck Rule Game") between the Patriots and the Oakland Raiders on Jan. 19, 2002.