Toronto FC fans waking up this morning will likely be knowingly looking out their window and shaking their head.
Black clouds, not seen in days, have appeared just in time for a TFC game day. It’s become a running joke in Toronto that the best cure for drought is home games for the Reds. It seems like every time we go to BMO Field it’s miserable.
But, is it true? Has there been more rain and terrible weather on game days. Let’s look.
[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]Since Preki and Mo Johnson were fired (and we all know that if there is more rain on game days it has to have something to do with a curse of some sort put on the club by those two) TFC has played 34 home dates. They are listed below with indication of whether it rained or not and what the mean temperature was that day. All data is from weather.ca.
- Sept 25, 2010 – no – 14C
- Sept 28, 2010 – yes – 17C
- Oct 16, 2010 – no – 12C
- Oct 19, 2010 – no - 10C
- March 19, 2011 – no – 2C
- April 2, 2011 – no – 7C
- April 13, 2011 – yes – 8C
- April 16, 2011 – yes – 6C
- April 23, 2011 – yes – 14C
- May 4, 2011 – no – 10C
- May 7, 2011 – yes – 12C
- May 14, 2011 – yes – 15C
- May 25, 2011 – yes – 13C
- May 28, 2011 – yes – 16C
- June 4, 2011 – yes – 15C
- June 18, 2011 – no – 22C
- June 29, 2011 – no – 19C
- July 20, 2011 – no – 28C
- July 27, 2011 – no – 23C
- Aug 13, 2011 – no – 23C
- Aug 24, 2011 – yes – 22C
- Aug 27, 2011 – no – 21C
- Sept 17, 2011 – no – 14C
- Sept 20, 2011 – no – 17C
- Sept 27, 2011 – no – 21C
- Oct 1, 2011 – no – 9C
- Oct 22, 2011 – no – 8C
- March 24, 2012 – yes – 9C
- March 28, 2012 – yes – 12C
- March 31, 2012 – no – 4C
- April 14, 2012 - yes – 11C
- April 21, 2012 - yes – 7C
- May 5, 2012 - no – 12C
- May 9, 2012 – yes – 15C
- May 23, 2012 – a whole lot of black clouds, but that could just be the doom
So, it’s rained on 15 of the 34 days, or 44 per cent of games. That includes a staggering eight of nine game stretch last spring, which is likely where the perception comes from that it always rains on TFC (that and, well, the soul-sucking losing).
We know that it has rained for almost half of TFC games since Preki and Mo walked the plank, but is that abnormal?
To find out we looked at 34 random dates throughout the same time frame (they were equally distributed through the months of April and Sept, with half weight distribution in March and October. They were selected randomly with days that a TFC game occurred on removed from selection possibility).
Out of the 34 random dates there was rain seven days, or 20.5 per cent of wet days.
The temperature is interesting, with just an average mean of 13.4C. Contrary to belief, Toronto is hot in the summer and Canadians don’t think 13.4C is all that warm. Of course TFC doesn’t play a lot of summer games because it’s too successful in selling season tickets and therefore, as good league partners, it gives up those home dates to allow clubs that need walk-up sales the better dates. Fix that next year TFC, OK...
With only five dates warmer than 20C and just one above 25C there have been very, very few “nice” days at the park. We Canucks spend half the year huddled inside. It’s little wonder many people are choosing not to freeze by the lake while watching poor soccer.
Using our random dates we found an average mean of 14.4C. Seven days were above 20C and two above 25C.
Dress warm tonight and bring rain gear.