The NCAA Final Four activities took place Friday, March 30th through Monday, April 2nd in downtown San Antonio. In addition to the Semi-Final and National Championship games at the Alamodome, which attracted nearly 70,000 spectators each day, a large music festival in Hemisphere Park took place, attracting nearly 100,000 attendees over the course of three days. A large Fan Festival also took place each day along with a river parade on the Riverwalk after the National Championship Game.
Beginning in the Fall of 2017, and continuing through the Final Four weekend, NWS Austin/San Antonio Warning Coordination Meteorologist Paul Yura and Lead Forecaster Jason Runyen worked closely with the San Antonio Office of Emergency Management (SAOEM) and San Antonio Convention & Sports Facilities (Alamodome) on weather preparedness, awareness, contingency plans, establishing weather impact thresholds, and attended several Public Safety Planning Meetings.
NWS Austin/San Antonio also developed weather injects for one of four scenarios that were presented at a large table top exercise in February hosted by SAOEM, FBI, and SAPD officials. Leading up to the Final Four Paul and Jason worked closely with the Alamodome to obtain StormReady recognition and also to become a Weather-Ready Nation Ambassador.
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| A large tabletop exercise was conducted by SAOEM, FBI, and SAPD in preparation of the Final Four. NWS Austin/San Antonio provided a weather scenario and inject for the exercise. |
Weeks ahead of the Final Four, an email distribution list of core partners was developed to send weather information, and included personnel from the SAOEM, San Antonio Fire Department (SAFD), San Antonio Police Department (SAPD), San Antonio Department of Aviation, San Antonio Convention & Sports Facilities, and Texas Division of Emergency Management.
Email briefings sent 14 days and 10 days ahead of the Final Four weekend highlighted the potential for strong to severe storms and locally heavy rainfall during setup week leading up to the Final Four. Daily email briefings began 7 days ahead of the Final Four weekend and continued through Championship Monday.
Another aspect of weather support was on the aviation side. Almost 500 additional general aviation aircraft arrived at San Antonio International and San Antonio Stinson airports for the Final Four and an additional 15 commercial flights were added Friday and Tuesday. NWS Austin/San Antonio forecasters collaborated with the Houston Center Weather Service Unit and Aviation Weather Center to provide impact-based forecasts to FAA decision makers. They also provided wind, ceiling, visibility, and thunderstorm input into a shared decision matrix provided to the FAA.
Friday through Monday various forecasters were deployed to the SAOEM’s Emergency Operations Center (EOC) to assist with weather monitoring and briefings to a small Incident Management Team. Forecasters were also deployed Saturday and Monday to the Alamodome’s Event Command Center, where SAPD, SAFD, FBI, Secret Service, Alamodome Facility Managers, and other security and public safety personnel were assembled.
Fortunately the weather ended up cooperating Friday through Monday, with the only notable weather impacts being an uptick in heat exhaustion calls to EMS at the Music Festival on Sunday. However, significant impacts did occur during the set-up phase of several of the events late Tuesday night through Wednesday evening, prior to Final Four weekend. This included three rounds of storms that produced 3-4 inches of rain, lightning, and hail. Sheltering of Alamodome personnel took place and two separate evacuations of workers constructing stages in Hemisphere Park occurred. The weather also resulted in flight delays, including one team’s charter.
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| Forecaster Brett Williams and Lead Forecaster Jason Runyen (not pictured) in the Alamodome's Event Command Room for the Semi-Final games, along-side SAPD, SAFD, FBI, Secret Service, and Aladome officials. |
Steve Zito, Facility Manager for the San Antonio Convention & Sports Facilities’ Alamodome, said in reference to weather preparedness, becoming a Weather-Ready Nation Ambassador, and becoming StormReady Recognized: “The impact you truly had on us, our operations, and our event was significant. The training [and] awareness allowed us to be proactive and not reactive and allowed us to create and implement our contingency plans. It allowed us to pull staff inside out of harm’s way before the action, to prepare and secure those parts of the set-up that needed to be removed or battened down, etc.”
