1932 was the thirteenth season for the fledgling National Football League. There were only eight teams, including many you would not recognize today. These were the final standing at the end of the season.

Chicago Bears 7W 1L 6T .875
Green Bay Packers 10W 3L 1T .769
Portsmouth Spartans 6W 2L 4T .750
Boston Braves 4W 4L 2T .500
New York Giants 4W 6L 2T .400
Brooklyn Dodgers 3W 9L 0T .250
Chicago Cardinals 2W 6L 2T .250
Staten Isl. Stapletons 2W 7L 3T .222

Ties must have been at a premium.

Since the league formed in 1920, the championship was awarded to the team with the best regular season record, excluding ties. The Chicago Bears and Portsmouth tied for the best regular season record. The league was forced to play a one game play to decide the champion. It would be the first playoff game in NFL history and it was played on December 18, 1932.

The game had to be moved indoors into Chicago Stadium because of bitterly cold temperatures and heavy snow in the Windy City. The playing field had to be shortened to eighty yards to fit in the stadium. The edge of the field ran right up to the walls of the stadium floor. It looked more like today’s arena football than the NFL to which we are accustomed today.

The Bears won 9-0, capturing their third straight NFL Championship. A two yard pass from Bronco Nagurski to Red Grange sealed the victory. The idea caught on. The NFL’s first official Championship Game would be played the following year. Go Stapletons!

The Saturday map discussion video is on the server at:

http://beta.abc3340.com/weather/video.hrb

Quite an interesting day yesterday that certainly busted my temperature forecasts. Clouds from the Pacific raced across Mexico and Texas with enough thickness to reduce the warming effects of the sun, so our high temperatures did not achieve forecasted results - missed the mark by about five degrees. Then the clouds reamined overnight creating a nice blanket and keeping low temperatures a bit warmer - low of only 37 at my location with a similar reading at the Birmingham airport.

Low pressure system has formed in the northwest Gulf with lots of rain in southeast Texas and southern Louisiana. It is forecast to move - and rather quickly I might add - into the Atlantic off the southeast US coast by this time tomorrow. A speedy zonal flow pattern in the upper atmosphere should take this system by us quickly and both the GFS and NAM are in good agreement on this. Precipitation amounts should be rather light for north and central Alabama. Still a risk for a wintry mix across northeast Alabama say north and east of a line from Huntsville to Anniston along with the higher elevations. But early Sunday morning the precipitation should be out of Alabama and Bob will be history.

Small respite in the weather as the new week starts and we may see a moderating trend with temperatures moving toward normal.

The GFS is advertising high pressure centered over the middle of the country by mid-week. This scenario could well suppress any Gulf low development further into the Gulf keeping it away from the coast and Alabama. And the GFS shows the third storm, Hope, to be a shadow of itself compared to what some earlier model runs depicted. I'm not certain that I'm ready to buy into this solution yet. A quick peek at the longer range European model shows some similarity to the GFS solution which tends to bolster confidence. But the forecast for Hope is still a good way into the future, so this remains a wait-and-see situation.

Advancing to Christmas day, the latest GFS shows a dry day with some clouds. And by the last day of the year, the weather pattern seems to return to a pattern much like the one on-going now with a Gulf low and the risk of wintry precipitation somewhere in the southeast. But that's definitely a "stay tuned."

As we approach Christmas, I sincerely hope that you will find the peace that the birth of Jesus Christ promised to the world and all mankind. Have a great weekend.

-Brian-