At 1 p.m. ET on Sunday, the Buffalo Bills and the Pittsburgh Steelers will take the field at Orchard Park in Buffalo, New York, for a playoff football game at the same time that a massive blizzard is set to hit the region.
In Iowa, snow has petrified pretty much the entire state three days before voters are set to weigh in on their choice for the Republican nominee for president in the long-anticipated first-in-the-nation caucuses. And while there isn’t supposed to be much snowfall on caucus day, the weather promises to be bitterly cold, with sub-zero temperatures in much of the state.
Both of these events are staples of American culture. Playoff football in Buffalo and the first presidential nominating contest of an election year that starts a sprint to Election Day in November.
There is always speculation about how extreme weather will affect a major event. And certainly one can wonder how the extreme cold and snow will affect turnout at the caucus sites in Iowa or the bleachers of Highmark Stadium.
But there’s something quite American about sticking to regular routines under unusual circumstances (although I’m sure Bills fans will say there is nothing unusual about this). It channels a little bit of that sense of exploration and adventure that motivated so many Americans to take risks into the unknown, whether it is the frontiersman making the long, arduous trek west in search of gold in the 1800s (one can imagine how many blizzards they endured on those grueling journeys) or the astronauts who made their way to the moon without knowing for sure if they would return.
Certainly watching a football game or going to vote is quite different than traveling thousands of miles of unknown country in a horse-drawn wagon or going to the moon. But they are all things that have helped define American culture.
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So regardless of the weather, you can bet that the fans in Buffalo will pack the seats and sell out the game. And in Iowa, I have no doubt that the Republican caucusgoers in the Hawkeye State won’t let frigid temperatures keep them from adding their voice to the Republican nominating contest.
And while I am looking forward to watching a snow-covered playoff football game in the warm comfort of my own home far from Buffalo, I can’t help but say bring on the blizzards.