Dallas-Ft Worth Super Bowl Gets Snow, Many Hotel Rooms Available

Fort Worth Snow, originally uploaded by Optic Oreo.

The Dallas Super Bowl organization officially called "The Super Bowl XLV North Texas Host Committee" issued a post on its website that reports:

ROOMS STILL AVAILABLE
Most major hotels throughout the region still have availability for Super Bowl XLV...National Football League (NFL) fans in Chicago, Green Bay, New York and Pittsburgh take note: it’s not too late to book hotel rooms for Super Bowl XLV in North Texas. Major hotel brands such as Hilton, Hyatt, Marriott, Sheraton and Westin, just to name a few, still have rooms available at affordable prices. Rates start as low as $79 per night, with some hotel properties not requiring a minimum night stay.

This is the first time in Super Bowl History that a host committee issued a message explaining that even major hotels had rooms and that you didn't have to buy one for four nights - the common minimum Super Bowl stay requirement (get there Thursday, leave Monday). That's due, for the most part, to the unexpected severe weather conditions. In other words, the ice storm followed by the snow that started falling overnight and hasn't stopped since.

Detroit was snowing like this for the 2006 Super Bowl, but folks there were used to it and Steelers fans didn't care - hotels were hard to come by. And a Steelers fan said "Detroit's just up the road from us," meaning it was no problem to get there by car and not plane.

I stayed in Warren, Michigan, about 20 miles out, and drove in for the game and the parties. I thought it was going to be awful; man, I had a blast! But that was because snow was and is part of the deal for them, and for Indy too, where the 2012 Super Bowl will be.

This is different.

Dallas Cowboys Owner Jerry Jones has to wonder if God's got something on him, because not only was the snow not supposed to be part of the deal, last year's NBA All-Star Game had bad weather too.

But not this bad. This is the worst weather for this time anyone's seen in over 15 years. It also completely obliterates the forecast of 50 degree weather over the weekend, and points more to a Super Bowl played with the snow and cold outside.

Moreover, Twitter tweets under the NFL-created hashtag #sb45 mostly concern the snow:

HeyDivaD Hey, DivaD 

Good Morning, Dallas! #nastytexasweather #sb45 http://plixi.com/p/74724865

cbarta carolyn barta

Should Dallas get out of big events biz? Bookend to icy #SB45: GOP Natl Conv in 1984. Temps hit 110, heat was miserable. We're snakebit.

MsPartyGirl Molly B 

Dear Lord please make it stop snowing in Dallas....this sux....xoxo....#SB45

You get the idea.

The snow is everywhere in the D/FW Metroplex. The photo above was taken in FT. Worth just 20 minutes ago. And now on The Dan Patrick Show on DirecTV Channel 101 you can see know falling outside the window of the set. (For some reason they elected to do the show at a make-shift set outside The Super Bowl Media Center.)

Plus, a number of flights into Dallas - Ft. Worth airport have been cancelled, impacting Super Bowl events. One Atlanta Falcons player - I'll nail down his ID for the next blog post - missed a radio show because his flight from Atlanta to Dallas was nixed due to the weather.

I can't help but wonder how many people bought Super Bowl tickets, yet can't get to Dallas. Yikes.