When soccer’s World Cup arrives in South Florida next month, there will be a new player on the pitch: meteorologists.
The National Weather Service's Miami office, with back-up from around the country, will be staffing matches at Hard Rock Stadium, along with training centers, transportation hubs and other soccer events to track steamy temperatures and other hazards. Starting in June and through the tournament’s end, the agency will be providing daily briefings with a focus on soccer events along with updates as needed.
”Anyone that's there can come to the meteorologists and ask questions and get the information they need rapidly,” said Robert Molleda, Meteorologist-in-Charge for the Miami Office. “ For a critical event like this where there’s tens of thousands of people, safety is super important.”
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It’s also a measure of just how seriously South Florida takes its summertime weather — a double whammy of excessive heat and hurricane season.
Miami-Dade County’s officially designated heat season started this month, with an early blast of heat foreshadowing what scientists say could be the hottest tournament on record in North America. That heat could be especially acute around Miami-Dade County, where the tournament stadium sits on the edge of the Everglades surrounded by pavement.
”The way [people] experience heat in Miami is very different than the way heat is experienced in other cities in the U.S.,” said Amy Clement, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School who studies heat. “A lot of our guidelines have been built on a model for a different climate, like in New York or Chicago, where heat will come in a wave, and then it will return to some conditions.”
In Miami, she said, heat is a season-long event.
“Heat doesn't come in waves here,” she said. “It starts in May and ends in October.”
“Be aware. It’s gonna be hot. That’s my prediction.”Amy Clement, atmospheric scientist at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School .
During those months, temperatures consistently reach levels considered dangerous by the Weather Service. To better warn the public, the Weather Service lowered the threshold for excessive heat advisories by two degrees Fahrenheit to 105 degrees in Miami-Dade and Broward Counties in 2023 and 2024. Miami-Dade also launched an official heat season, similar to hurricane season, to keep the public better informed. That’s because 'feels-like' temperatures, driven by a combination of heat and humidity, regularly reach conditions that can be hazardous.
So how hot will people feel at soccer events? Turns out that’s not so easy to predict.
Local conditions, like pavement, shade, individual health and fitness, and activity, all determine impacts from heat, Clement said. With so many variables, she said it can be hard to say what fans might experience at the stadium. Getting accurate measurements for specific locations can also be difficult.
”There are idiosyncrasies in how we actually measure these things, where the sensors actually are, how much sunlight they're exposed to, what height they're at, how much ventilation there is. How much other sources of anthropogenic heat,” Clement said.
“It's actually really difficult to measure what the heat hazard is everywhere. So I actually don't even know if I can answer your question about the stadium itself.”
Wet Bulb Global Temperature
FIFA, soccer’s international governing body, has rules regarding heat for players. It’s based on what’s called wet bulb temperature, or WBGT, which combines temperature with humidity to determine whether sweat can effectively cool the body. In December, FIFA announced it would also impose water breaks halfway through each half of the matches, regardless of weather or location.
Of the 16 tournament cities in the U.S., Mexico and Canada, 14 experience extreme heat during July, according to a study by Donal Mullan, a climate scientist at Queen’s University Belfast. In a paper last year examining heat risks at World Cup host cities, Mullan found WBGT levels in four cities that exceed those that some soccer governing bodies consider safe for play. In Miami, those wet bulb temperatures can remain above safe levels well into the later afternoon.
But what about fans?
The weather service will be issuing advisories directly to the public, like during a regular heat season, Molleda said. As for the stadium and whether cooling stations will be available, stadium officials referred questions to FIFA, which did not respond to requests for comment.
At World Cup events in downtown Miami and at parks all around the county, a spokeswoman for the local host committee said in an email to WLRN that shade, access to water and hydration, and cooling features will be available.
What might come as a surprise to fans, especially out-of-towners, are evenings temperatures, Clement said. Because of South Florida’s humidity, night-time temperatures can stay high compared to other places.
”When the sun is not shining, the earth is radiating heat away to space and that's why in a desert it's cool because it's so dry. All that heat just goes right out to space,” Clement said. “But here in Florida, at nighttime there's a layer of humidity which traps the radiation and keeps it close to the surface rather than radiating to space.”
For soccer fans at hot events, the Centers for Disease Control recommends they stay alert about risks, know heat stroke symptoms and stay hydrated.
“Be aware,” Clement said. “It’s gonna be hot. That’s my prediction.”
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