NFL weather report — wind, temperature and rain at every kickoff

What wind actually does to fantasy scoring

Weather is the most over-discussed variable in fantasy football and almost all of the discussion is about the wrong things. Snow makes great television. Cold makes great copy. Neither reliably moves a box score. Sustained wind does, and it is the only weather variable this site will flag, because it is the only one with a documented, repeatable effect on scoring.

The effect turns up at roughly 15 mph and gets serious past 20 mph. In The Spax's study “Analyzing the Effect of Weather in the NFL”, NFL quarterbacks completed 60.3% of their passes in winds under 10 mph and 54.7% once the wind reached 20 mph or more — and games played in 20+ mph wind averaged about 2.7 fewer combined points. That is the entire basis for the flag on this page. Below 15 mph, we say so and move on.

Who the wind moves, in order

• Kickers, by a distance. A field goal is the most wind-exposed play in football: a 45-yarder into a stiff crosswind is a materially different attempt. Gusts matter here even when the sustained number looks tame, which is why the board prints a gust separately once it reaches 25 mph.
• Deep passing games. Wind compresses the route tree. The boom-bust downfield receiver loses his ceiling first, because the throws that make his week are the ones that stop being attempted.
• Quarterback ceilings, not floors. Volume mostly survives; efficiency and yards per attempt do not. A wind game is a reason to prefer the quarterback who runs.
• Running backs, mildly upward. The same script that hurts the passing game hands carries to the backfield — a tiebreaker in a flex decision, not a projection change.
• Defenses, mildly upward. A wet, windy ball produces more short fields and more punts. It is a real reason to prefer one streamer over another.

What none of this justifies is benching a starter. Talent and volume beat weather every week of the season. Wind is a tiebreaker between two players you already thought were close — use it as one.

What we deliberately do not flag

• Ordinary cold and heat. Sharp Football Analysis measured roughly an 8% reduction in points scored in games above 85°F or below 25°F — a real effect, but only at the extremes. The board flags temperature at 20°F and 95°F, well outside “it's a cold one out there”.
• Rain on its own. Precipitation produces a modest passing decline and not much else; rain with wind behind it is a different story. So a precipitation chance earns a flag only above 60% and only with at least 10 mph of wind under it.
• Snow. Great pictures, unreliable signal. Whatever is worth knowing about a snow game is usually already in the wind number.

How this board is built

Every open-air stadium has a fixed latitude and longitude; the kickoff time and venue come from the nflverse schedule, and the forecast is the National Weather Service's hourly gridpoint reading for that stadium at that specific hour — not a daily high, not a city average. The snapshot is re-pulled nightly and the board shows you the exact instant it was fetched, because a forecast pulled on Thursday is a different claim from one pulled 90 minutes before kickoff.

A dome or a closed roof gets no forecast because it needs none. A retractable roof is treated as indoors and labelled as an assumption — clubs close them when the weather is bad, but that is a game-day decision, not a data point. And past the end of the NWS window, roughly seven days out, the cell is empty. No seasonal average, no number borrowed from a nearby hour, no last-year stand-in. For fantasy-playoff planning that far ahead, the schedule grid's late-season outdoor flag is a climate label rather than a forecast, which is the honest version of the question.

Using it on a Sunday morning

1. Scan for the wind flag first. Most weekends have none, and that is a result, not a gap.
2. If a game is flagged, check who you own in it — kicker first, then deep threats, then the quarterback.
3. Re-check about 90 minutes before kickoff. Wind is the least stable part of a forecast and a Thursday number is not a Sunday number.
4. Read it next to the market. A wind game with a falling total is the two signals agreeing; run the numbers on the implied team total calculator.

Related tools

The full 2026 NFL schedule grid carries this same board alongside byes, primetime and short-week flags. Streaming a defense into a wind game? The DST points calculator scores the result, and the kicker points calculator covers the position wind hits hardest. For the week's roster shape, the bye week checker and FAAB bid calculator are the other two in-season pages worth having open.