A stratospheric warming event that began in late February and continued through March continues to do its magic in the month of April with cold air outbreaks across the eastern and central US…and it looks like we are not done quite yet with this overall pattern. This atmospheric phenomenon has lead to numerous cold weather early season baseball games in the young 2025 season and plenty of low “Home Run Forecast Index (HRFI)” values. In fact, an unusually cold air mass exists today across the Midwest, Northeast US, and Mid-Atlantic region and there are games today, Friday, April 11th, in New York City, Cleveland, Cincinnati and Chicago that will feature cold weather conditions and low HRFI values…indicative of unfavorable weather conditions for the ball to carry. This air mass is so chilly, in fact, that there can be accumulating snow late Friday night/early Saturday across many higher elevation locations from northeastern PA to interior New England with flakes even possible in the I-95 corridor (no accumulations there).
The Home Run Forecast Index is displayed at all stadiums on our free site for the current time and on our premium site (sign up here for $5.99 per month) for all of today’s games AND tomorrow’s games…data is updated on an hourly basis and is calculated using stadium-specific weather conditions. Looking ahead, there may finally be a warmer-than-normal stretch of weather in the Great Lakes, Midwest, Northeast US after the 20th of April or so.
Meteorologist Paul Dorian