A special cover was borrowed from Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh and shipped across the state. Hot-air blowers were set up to guarantee a dry, unfrozen field. The snow arrived in the predawn hours Saturday. The Vet crew was mobilized to meet it. There were tons and tons to plow and shovel.
Climatologists compare major storms to similar ones of the past to help fine-tune future forecasts.
Ironically, the analogous storm for this one was the one right before before the Eagles' 1960 Franklin Field title game against Vince Lombardi's Packers. One famous piece of film shows Tommy McDonald scoring on a Norm Van Brocklin pass, then slipping on an ice patch in the end zone and careening into a snow bank. It was cold, sure, but the turf was no worse than it ever is. And with plowed parking lots and the Vet aisles cleared of snowball temptation, a national-TV audience expecting a New Year's Eve reprise of Ice Bowl II saw what real football fans are supposed to look and sound like. As the stadium mess he inherited from media personality Ed Rendell appeared to fall apart, Street was vilified.