As you guys know, I Don't Do Sports [JessePedia]. But occasionally I will do sports-related weather, and right now the big event coming up is Superbowl XLII (43), which (as I understand it :)) is February 1st in Tampa, Florida.

Believe it or not, the biggest threat to the (open-air) stadium could face is not rain, but tornadoes. Now, of course the statistical probability of a tornado hitting a particular place is minuscule, but it's important that we look at the history of tornadoes in Florida, and when we do, we find out that February is, by far, the deadliest tornado month in Florida (yes, I'm aware that technically Feb. 1 is the border between January and February). Here is a graphic from the NWS showing the spread of deadly twisters in Florida:

Indeed, Wikipedia tags the February 22-23, 1998 Florida tornado outbreak as being "the deadliest in the state." The NWS has a report on that outbreak, including radar images; the outbreak was centered to the east near Orlando.

If you break it down by county, Tampa (center west coast) is certainly one of those areas that stands out with a larger number of deadly tornadoes than surrounding areas - Pinellas and Hillsborough county combined, had 7 deadly twisters between 1882 and 2007, according to the NWS:

Those were the deadly storms; TornadoProject.com says that there were 12 twisters in the two counties between 1950 and 1995. As far as recent tornadoes in Florida during January and February, here's a list of what happened:

- 3 In Jan. 2008 (Just North of Tampa) - 17 In Feb. 2008 (None on West Coast) - 0 In Jan. 2007 (None in Florida) - 6 In Feb. 2007 (None on West Coast)

TampaBay.com recalls that "One of the deadliest tornadoes in Florida history struck on February 2, 2007," which, like the 1998 outbreak, occurred further east. You can read my blogs from that outbreak below.

Joe Lundberg (PREMIUM | PRO) mentioned recently that we are in a La Nina winter now. Do El Nino & La Nina patterns affect the likelihood or severity of an outbreak? The data is inconclusive. While the 1998 outbreak was during a record strong El Nino year, a study by the NWS said: "The historic El Nino's of 1983 and 1998 set the stage for historic tornado activity in Florida. The deadliest tornado outbreak prior to February 1998 occurred in a neutral year (3/31/62). History tells us we cannot rule out devastating tornadoes in any severe weather season, regardless of the state of El Nino." (You can find a list of years here).

So, the short answer to the question in the title is: Probably not, but you couldn't pick a worse month to have a major sports event in Florida. More likely we'll have to deal with run-of-the-mill thunderstorms which could drop deadly lightning on the open stadium - this danger has much better odds of happening, though, unlikely deadly tornadoes, lightning strikes are much weaker in Florida during the winter months, according to a study done in the 1990's.

If you DO enjoy sports, you can see full Superbowl coverage, including exclusive graphics and videos, between now and then on AccuWeather.com here. Hopefully, this year's game will complete with no weather problems. The Super Bowl is not famous for weather problems historically, though in "Super Bowl XVI" in 1982, icy roads caused delays and other logistical problems. 10connects.com says that tarps were pulled out to protect the field from freezing during last night's unusual cold outbreak.

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