The Suprising Truth About Heat & Humidity, Cold and Altitude for Home Field Advantage

[Hoofbeats]

Hi Fish fans. I don't know if you will find this interesting or not but I thought before leaving out of here I'd fill you in on a few things I figured out after listening to fans on our board from both teams talk up the heat factor as why we got the living snot kicked out of us yesterday. I've taken grief over there for suggesting that this is a convenient excuse for a bad performance. Even Fish fans are telling me I'm an idiot not to bow down to the great heat/humidity factor. Seems to me it would be better for them to credit their team with a great game instead of the heat, but that's beside the point.. I undertook this little project because 1) I like to play with numbers, and 2) to see how much the elements actually make a difference and whether heat/humidity, cold or altitude has the largest impact, and 3) it's my little gift to you for when Buffalo fans show up here talking about how they are invincible in the cold...

Anyway...I went back and looked at the history of your team and the heat advantage for September games I've heard so much about. Just for grins I also compared the same factor for the Tamp Bay Bucaneers. Miami and Tampa Bay have approximatley the same humidty index for September ( http://www.berner.com/new/energy-relhumidity.htm). I included Tampa because in checking for both winning and losing teams I needed a larger sample than Miami's 7 losing seasons provided. I also decided to see how much Buffalo's cold weather advantage and Denver's altitude effect those team's home field performance over the history of each franchise. My contention is that heat, humidity, cold and altitude do not significantly impact home field advantage. How good the team is has much more to do with winning at home for teams that enjoy a so-called weather or altitude advantage. Bottom line: good teams win and bad teams lose, regardless of the outside factors.

Check this out; Miami has had only 7 losing seasons in their history. In the 29 seasons that Miami finished at .500 or above they have a remarkable September home winning percentage of .869 with a 40-6 record (ties were factored out). But in the 7 seasons Miami finished below .500, their home record in September dropped to 3-8, or a dismal .272 winning percentage. The team lost more home games in September during those 7 seasons than they did in the other 29 years combined. The quality of the team made the difference, not the weather. Additionally, good Miami teams finishing over .500 had a combined 151-53 record for cooler games in October -December, for a .740 winning percentage and the 7 losing teams combined for a 16-22 home record for games in October-December for a ..421 winning percentage. In other words, the good Miami teams won only 12.9% more when playing in the heat at home than they did when it was cooler. Bad Miami teams were actually 14.9% MORE SUCCESSFUL in the cooler months than they were playing in the September heat. So while heat/humidity acounted for approximiately 1 extra win per season for the good teams, bad Miami teams actually lost 1 game in September they wouldn't have lost otherwise. What does this tell us? It tells us that winners overcome the elements and losers don't. The heat/humidity will slightly help good Miami teams and hurt bad Miami teams.

Using this same system to grade Tampa Bay, Denver (altitude), and Buffalo (cold), reveals some surprising things:

Tampa Bay Bucs: The September home record for teams finishing at .500 or above is 13-3, or a nifty .812 winning percentage. Those same teams finished 35-14 at home during the cooler Oct-Dec months for a winning percentage of .714. For the winning Buc teams, the home field in September's heat equates to a 9.8% higher winning percentage. Bad Buc teams finishing below .500 have a combined September home record of 11-26, or a .297 winning percentage, while those same bad Buc teams went 37-64 (.366 winning percentage) in the cooler Oct-Dec games. Thus, the bad Buc teams won 6.9% MORE in the cooler months. Once again, the good teams took advantage of the heat and the bad teams were overcome by it.

Conclusion: The heat/humidity is a small advantage for good teams and a dissadvantage for bad teams. On balance, the heat/humidity can be said only to make a small advantage if the team is already good, and it hurts the Bucs in years where they have not been as good, so it has the same result for Tampa Bay as it does for Miami, which on overall balance is minimal in either direction.

Buffalo Bills: Bills teams finishing above .500 have a 49-24 home record (.671%) in the cold weather of November and December, and a 80-27 home record (.747%)in the warmer months of September and October. Bills teams below .500 compiled an 18-41 home record (.305 winning percentage) during the cold Nov-Dec months, and a 32-60 home record (.347 winning percentage) for the warmer Sept-Oct months. Thus the good Bills teams actually win 7.6% MORE in the warmer weather and the bad Bills teams won 4.2% more often in the warmer weather.

Conclusion: Regardless of the teams record, bad weather has a negative effect on the winning percentage of the home team in spite of them being used to it. Therefore, Buffalo cannot claim to have an advantage in the cold, since they are less successful in it. This factor does not account for games against only warm weather teams played at home in Nov-Dec. One would assume they have some advantage against teams that rarely play in the cold, however overall it is not an advantage, it's a dissadvantage for Buffalo.

Denver Broncos: Bad Denver teams finishing below .500 since the team's origin in 1960 have a 52-63 record playing at home in the altitude for a .452 winning percentage. Good Bronco teams finished 163-49 at home for a .774 winning percentage. Thus, good Bronco teams win at a 32.2% higher rate than sub .500 Bronco teams. This equates to a 1.9 more wins per year at home for the good teams.

Denver is 215-112 at home all time, a .657 home winning percentage and 133-45 (.747) since 1974 (which is the highest in the NFL during that time). However, the pre-1974 home record when the team was horrible was 82-68, a .546 record. The difference between the good and bad Denver teams home winning percentage all time is .322 percent, a much smaller gap than Miami's differential in the September heat between good and bad teams, a massive .597 percentage; Tampa Bay's (.515), and Buffalos (.366) differential are also larger. Bad Denver teams (.452), outperformed at home in the altitude vs bad Miami teams in the September heat (.272); Tampa Bay (.297), Buffalo in the Nov-Dec cold (.305)

Conclusion Since altitude is present at all times I could not measure this at different times of the year as I did with heat/humidity and cold but altitude seems to provide the largest advantage because the difference between the good and bad teams home performance is the smallest, a drop of only .322%. Denver's total winning percentage all time is .524 compared to Miami's .600, which may explain the slilghtly smaller all time home winning percentage vs Miami's heat factor in September since Miami has been a stronger team overall. Altitude appears to account for as much as 1.9 wins per year, while heat/humidity are worth about 1 win per year for good teams and 1 extra loss for bad teams. Denver's teams appear to have benefitted for both good and bad teams however. The cold weather Bills home games are worse for both good and bad Bills teams and appear to have about half the impact of heat/humidity, though always in a negative fashion.

Summary Comparing all three factors, the only consistent advantage belongs to altitude, while heat/humidity benefits only winning teams and cold weather actually consistently hurts the home team regardless of whether they are good or bad. Miami's record over the last 38 years is more impressive given the tendency of heat/humidity to harm poor teams. Buffalo's performance is the least inspiring because they've failed to utilize their climate advantage at all.

 

[Nublar7]

I'll be honest and say I didn't read the whole thing.

But, the heat didn't cause a 24 point difference. It helped us, but it doesn't cause blowouts.

 

[Hoofbeats]

I'll be honest and say I didn't read the whole thing.

But, the heat didn't cause a 24 point difference. It helped us, but it doesn't cause blowouts.

I agree. Shanny's inability to adjust when Mike Anderson went out by running plays more suited for Tatum Bell kept hurt our offense, along with Jake going in the crapper. That kept our D on the field way to long for even a regular game, let alone one with the high heat index. The D actually played well considering how long they were on the field but our offense lost the game for us, along with our coaching.

 

[Timmy54]

now that was a ton of research

 

[ckparrothead]

I disagree wholeheartedly with your findings and do not find your constructions or conclusions to be robust.

First off, you construct two test subjects of each teams, winning teams and losing teams. I find no reason to separate the two. Winning Miami teams do not practice in different heat and humidity than losing Miami teams. There is no reason to think the heat and humidity affect winning Miami teams differently from losing Miami teams, and in order to prove this you would a much more prolific sampling than the paucity of losing seasons that Miami has had. For instance, in 2004 Miami was so bad that no amount of heat and/or humidity could have possibly helped us at the beginning of the season, as we were basically fielding a pop warner offensive line.


I also disagree with your use of Tampa Bay to bolster your stats. Having lived in Tampa for quite some time now, I can personally verify that the humidity and heat are not the same as the Miami area. The humidity MIGHT be close, but the heat is not quite the same.

Also, right now anyway, Tampa Bay has training camp in Orlando, FL. I do not know how long Orlando has been home to Bucs training camp, but I do know that it is not the same as the Miami area as far as heat and humidity is concerned. Therefore, if Tampa's September record is not quite the same as Miami's it is because they are not as closely tied to the home heat and humidity.

If you would like to do a study of a team that is in a similar situation to Miami, then check out the Houston Oilers, and then Houston Texans. They have humidity that is SOMEWHAT close to Miami humidity.

Besides, in this case, the narrative from countless fans and players who have experienced the effect is more robust than the data mining expedition you carried out. Sorry.

 

[ckparrothead]

Also good to keep in mind that the "effect" of the heat/humidity is bound to be different team by team depending on who Miami is playing. For instance, Houston practices in and plays in similar heat and humidity as we do all training camp long, so they are much less likely to suffer the same effect that the Denver Broncos would, since the Broncos practice in very dry and cool altitudes.

And, in 2003, the Dolphins dropped their home opener to the Houston Texans. It was the first home opener Miami had lost in I believe more than a decade.

 

[VanDolPhan]

Lets not forget that until the past couple Wanny years also this team was 18-1 over August/Sept games during a 12 year period when this team was 'never' that good outside of one year during that stretch. Add in Miami's typical fades in the cold weather and weather is obviously a factor.

 

[Hoofbeats]

First off, you construct two test subjects of each teams, winning teams and losing teams. I find no reason to separate the two. Winning Miami teams do not practice in different heat and humidity than losing Miami teams. There is no reason to think the heat and humidity affect winning Miami teams differently from losing Miami teams, and in order to prove this you would a much more prolific sampling than the paucity of losing seasons that Miami has had.

I should clarify this. I realize the physical effects of heat/humidity are the same on players of any team that plays in it. However, the way a team is able to RESPOND to these conditions is the key. For teams that have winning records, they appear to respond better. One could conclude that winners develop a tougher mental attitude and this may enable them to take advantage of conditions that disturb other teams.

I also disagree with your use of Tampa Bay to bolster your stats. Having lived in Tampa for quite some time now, I can personally verify that the humidity and heat are not the same as the Miami area. The humidity MIGHT be close, but the heat is not quite the same.

The two cities do not have to be exactly the same. They only need to be significantly different for the visiting team that is not used to it. The point is not that they are identical, but they are both heat/humidity related differences for most visiting teams not used to the conditions.

If you would like to do a study of a team that is in a similar situation to Miami, then check out the Houston Oilers, and then Houston Texans. They have humidity that is SOMEWHAT close to Miami humidity.

I didn't use Houston because the Oilers played in the indoor facility at the Houston Astodome, making them a different situation entirely.

Besides, in this case, the narrative from countless fans and players who have experienced the effect is more robust than the data mining expedition you carried out. Sorry.

Once again, I'm not suggesting the human body does not feel the effect; but that some teams that are able to use these conditions to their advantage and others are not. The good teams find a way to win more often in unfavorable conditions.

 

[Hoofbeats]

Lets not forget that until the past couple Wanny years also this team was 18-1 over August/Sept games during a 12 year period when this team was 'never' that good outside of one year during that stretch. Add in Miami's typical fades in the cold weather and weather is obviously a factor.

I'm not suggesting it is not a factor, just that it is less of a factor than people think. If it were universally a significant factor, Buffalo would win more often in cold weather than warm weather but the reverse is true. Miami's record in the hottest month is only marginally better than it is in the cooler months.

 

[BIG_SIR]

I disagree wholeheartedly with your findings and do not find your constructions or conclusions to be robust.

First off, you construct two test subjects of each teams, winning teams and losing teams. I find no reason to separate the two. Winning Miami teams do not practice in different heat and humidity than losing Miami teams. There is no reason to think the heat and humidity affect winning Miami teams differently from losing Miami teams, and in order to prove this you would a much more prolific sampling than the paucity of losing seasons that Miami has had. For instance, in 2004 Miami was so bad that no amount of heat and/or humidity could have possibly helped us at the beginning of the season, as we were basically fielding a pop warner offensive line.


I also disagree with your use of Tampa Bay to bolster your stats. Having lived in Tampa for quite some time now, I can personally verify that the humidity and heat are not the same as the Miami area. The humidity MIGHT be close, but the heat is not quite the same.

Also, right now anyway, Tampa Bay has training camp in Orlando, FL. I do not know how long Orlando has been home to Bucs training camp, but I do know that it is not the same as the Miami area as far as heat and humidity is concerned. Therefore, if Tampa's September record is not quite the same as Miami's it is because they are not as closely tied to the home heat and humidity.

If you would like to do a study of a team that is in a similar situation to Miami, then check out the Houston Oilers, and then Houston Texans. They have humidity that is SOMEWHAT close to Miami humidity.

Besides, in this case, the narrative from countless fans and players who have experienced the effect is more robust than the data mining expedition you carried out. Sorry.

Also, Tampa plays in those dark, stifling, absorbent uniforms even for their 1 p.m. games. Miami does not.

 

[Ozzy]

I'm not suggesting it is not a factor, just that it is less of a factor than people think. If it were universally a significant factor, Buffalo would win more often in cold weather than warm weather but the reverse is true. Miami's record in the hottest month is only marginally better than it is in the cooler months.

Even though your not making this an excuse. If anyone actually believes that the heat killed their team, they're looking for one.

The Bills play us here in Sept the most, and they learned how to handle it. They request as many cooling fans as they can, and every single time the offense, or defense come off the field, that unit sits in front of the cooling fans, and they're forced to drink. They started this four years ago, and it's helping. They've been strong in the fourth quarters of games ever since.

Shanahan should have looked into it a lot more. He had two fans that I saw, and both were set up on opposite sides of the bench. He is to be blamed for cramps, and exhaustion. However, he is in no way at fault for a 24 point loss. Denver just got beat by the better team on Sunday. Better coached, better conditioned, and better at execution. It does not make Miami the better team, but they were Sunday.

 

[ckparrothead]

First off, do not put the cold weather phenomenon on the same level as the hot weather phenomenon. Teams that play in cold weather in December do not practice in that cold weather as long as teams that play in hot weather in September practice in it before September. This is just by virtue of the seasons. The true hot weather in south florida starts right in May and stays the same all the way through October. It peaks a little in July and August, but always hot. On the other hand, the true cold weather for those teams begins only about a month prior to their infamous cold weather games. So while Miami has been practicing in just about the same heat and humidity since May, all the way through September when the games start counting, cold weather teams aren't truly preparing in true extreme cold weather conditions probably until late October, more realistically in November about a month before the games really get cold.

The hot weather phenomenon is well-documented. It really shouldn't even be questioned especially with the elementary stat exploration that you've put together. The heat and humidity would affect Dolphins home games differently depending on the opponent. As I mentioned before, teams like the Broncos, probably the 49ers, Seahawks, Bills, Patriots, Bears, Lions, etc would be more affected by the Miami heat because they practice in cooler, dryer conditions....where a lot of teams from the South may practice in similar situations to Miami, and be use to it. As I pointed out, a good example of the latter is Houston, who beat Miami at home in 2003.

The heat would not affect Dolphins teams differently whether they are good or bad. Good or bad, they still have prepared in the heat and are more conditioned to it than most teams in the NFL with some NFL teams being more tolerant of it than others. The heat conditioning is a constant, not a variable that is dependant upon the nature of the Dolphins team that year. There is literally no reason to split a single team's historical record into test subjects.

As a main problem with your study, you have primarily put the burden of the heat onto the home team. This is folly. The burden belongs to the away team in all cases. Away teams that are use to the conditions will handle it better, away teams that are not use to the conditions will not. A better study of the weather phenomenon would be to look at teams who might logically be victimized by such weather phenomenon...such as Denver, for instance. What is Denver's record in games with extreme conditions such as the ones experienced in Miami? What is Miami's experience in extreme COLD conditions? Such studies would be much more meaningful.

The problem with your ultra-small sampling of Dolphins' losing seasons is that a few conditions could seriously skew the percentages because you have such few data points. For instance, last year Miami and Pittsburgh played in Miami in a DELUGE of a hurricane. The field was sopping wet. Yet, that game, as a loss for Miami gets lumped into your 3-8 record construction. A few anomolies are to be expected, which is why you need to have a very large sampling in order to mine any MEANINGFUL data out of the expedition. That one loss in the deluge of a hurricane swings the winning percentage from 43% if you do not count the loss among your "September hot humid home games" sample, to 37.5% if you DO count it. That swing from the tossing out of one single data point is so significant that it shows just how INsignificant your sampling of Dolphins losing seasons is.

 

[ckparrothead]

Overall hoofbeats, I would have to say that your study is very normative in nature and not meaningful. You're constructions are not logical, nor do the statistical conclusions to back them up have significant sampling to be meaningful. Your conclusions are in no way robust. Your inherent suppositions are also very questionable.

You would get a D- in econ stats with this study. Sorry man. Next time try and do things a little more by the book.

 

[Hoofbeats]

First off, do not put the cold weather phenomenon on the same level as the hot weather phenomenon. Teams that play in cold weather in December do not practice in that cold weather as long as teams that play in hot weather in September practice in it before September. This is just by virtue of the seasons. The true hot weather in south florida starts right in May and stays the same all the way through October. It peaks a little in July and August, but always hot. On the other hand, the true cold weather for those teams begins only about a month prior to their infamous cold weather games. So while Miami has been practicing in just about the same heat and humidity since May, all the way through September when the games start counting, cold weather teams aren't truly preparing in true extreme cold weather conditions probably until late October, more realistically in November about a month before the games really get cold.

That's a good point, and it may account for why Buffalo has a better record in the warmer months at home than they do in the cold ones. The point is not realy WHY this happens, just that it happens. Buffalo has no home field advantage because of the cold GENERALY, thou as I already stated in the original post, they probably have one over very warm whether teams playing in the cold.

The hot weather phenomenon is well-documented. It really shouldn't even be questioned especially with the elementary stat exploration that you've put together. The heat and humidity would affect Dolphins home games differently depending on the opponent. As I mentioned before, teams like the Broncos, probably the 49ers, Seahawks, Bills, Patriots, Bears, Lions, etc would be more affected by the Miami heat because they practice in cooler, dryer conditions....where a lot of teams from the South may practice in similar situations to Miami, and be use to it. As I pointed out, a good example of the latter is Houston, who beat Miami at home in 2003.

As I said, I could not use Houston because the Oilers played in the Astrodome, away from the heat. The Texans are to new. It's obvious that different opponents fare differently in the heat, but looking at the entire history of the franchise, heat has only a marginal impact on the won-loss record of the team in September vs the rest of the team's schedule.

The heat would not affect Dolphins teams differently whether they are good or bad. Good or bad, they still have prepared in the heat and are more conditioned to it than most teams in the NFL with some NFL teams being more tolerant of it than others. The heat conditioning is a constant, not a variable that is dependant upon the nature of the Dolphins team that year. There is literally no reason to split a single team's historical record into test subjects.

I get the feeling you only read part of the post or skimmed through it without really reading it. I specifically stated that the physiological impact on the players is the same, but that good teams find a way to over compensate for this. Obviously the players bodies are impacted the same but some teams fight through this and some don't.

As a main problem with your study, you have primarily put the burden of the heat onto the home team. This is folly. The burden belongs to the away team in all cases. Away teams that are use to the conditions will handle it better, away teams that are not use to the conditions will not. A better study of the weather phenomenon would be to look at teams who might logically be victimized by such weather phenomenon...such as Denver, for instance. What is Denver's record in games with extreme conditions such as the ones experienced in Miami? What is Miami's experience in extreme COLD conditions? Such studies would be much more meaningful.

I think it's already pretty obvious that warm weather teams will struggle in extreme cold and visa versa...but you're missing the point. This is about whether the heat/cold/altitude is a significant factor in home field advantage, not about whether teams will struggle on the road in extreme conditions they are unfamiliar with. That much is allreay obvious.

The problem with your ultra-small sampling of Dolphins' losing seasons is that a few conditions could seriously skew the percentages because you have such few data points. For instance, last year Miami and Pittsburgh played in Miami in a DELUGE of a hurricane. The field was sopping wet. Yet, that game, as a loss for Miami gets lumped into your 3-8 record construction. A few anomolies are to be expected, which is why you need to have a very large sampling in order to mine any MEANINGFUL data out of the expedition. That one loss in the deluge of a hurricane swings the winning percentage from 43% if you do not count the loss among your "September hot humid home games" sample, to 37.5% if you DO count it. That swing from the tossing out of one single data point is so significant that it shows just how INsignificant your sampling of Dolphins losing seasons is.

Now I know you didn't read the post. I already stated that I included Tampa Bay's home record as well in order to enlarge the small sample to a more reliable size because Miami had to few poor seasons to measure effectively how they performed. Go back and read it through again and you'll see why I organized it the way I did.

 

[Hoofbeats]

Overall hoofbeats, I would have to say that your study is very normative in nature and not meaningful. You're constructions are not logical, nor do the statistical conclusions to back them up have significant sampling to be meaningful. Your conclusions are in no way robust. Your inherent suppositions are also very questionable.

You would get a D- in econ stats with this study. Sorry man. Next time try and do things a little more by the book.

I would suggest you simply did not read the post. You are bringing things up I already covered in the original post. I don't claim this is a scientific study. This is a football fan forum not a science lab. However, for people who are convinced that heat/cold/altitude are overwhelming advantages, the numbers suggest otherwise. If you read the post carefully you'll see what I'm talking about.