Forecasters are proving what Gilroy Garlic Festival President
Jennifer Speno knows to be true: predicting this weekend’s weather
is tricky business.
Depending on whom you believe, the 27th festival could be a warm
87 degrees or a hot 93 degrees. But most forecasts seem to agree
that temperatures will be nowhere near the 100 degrees-plus that
they were last weekend.
By Lori Stuenkel
Gilroy – Forecasters are proving what Gilroy Garlic Festival President Jennifer Speno knows to be true: predicting this weekend’s weather is tricky business.
Depending on whom you believe, the 27th festival could be a warm 87 degrees or a hot 93 degrees. But most forecasts seem to agree that temperatures will be nowhere near the 100 degrees-plus that they were last weekend.
“I’ve been keeping my eye on the Internet, the 10-day forecast, and I’ve been listening to the radio stations,” Speno said Monday, when the high was 91 degrees. “It sounds as though we’re going to be cooling off … into the weekend, so that’s good.”
With the weather being the biggest factor in determining attendance – and how much visitors enjoy the festival – Speno said she thinks the ideal range would be between 85 and 90 degrees.
“I think it’s just more pleasant weather for anybody to be out in,” Speno said. “It’s warm, but it’s not terribly hot.”
Meteorologist Bill Martin with KTVU Channel 2 said Tuesday that the festival temperatures will be precisely within that range.
“You should be 85 to 90 all three days,” Martin said, with low clouds in the morning followed by sunshine. “It won’t be too hot, no record-breaking (temperatures). No bad air quality. It should be good weather.”
A meteorologist with the National Weather Service, though, forecasted slightly higher temperatures, and said things are shaping up for a typical “hot, dry and dusty” festival.
“You’re probably going to see lots of sun and it’s probably going to be warm,” said Diana Henderson, which would not be unusual weather for late July.
Highs will probably be in the low 90s Friday, Saturday and Sunday, she said.
“Some years have been hotter, and some years have been, actually, a lot cooler,” she said.
The past several years have averaged on the cooler side, generally staying below 90 degrees.
Last year’s average was 87 degrees, with Friday and Saturday topping out at 85 and Sunday heating up at 90 degrees. Those temperatures were similar to 2003, when attendance at the festival’s 25th anniversary hit a record-setting 132,651. The two years prior, things stayed cool, in the low-to-mid 80s.
Two other sources, weather.com and accuweather.com, both vary in their predictions, but both say it will feel like a comfortable 85 to 86 degrees all three days of the festival.
If the heat does climb this weekend – like it did 10 years ago, with a sweltering 111 degrees – the festival grounds and volunteers are ready to accommodate visitors looking to keep cool. More shade has been added in the past two years. Family-sized umbrellas will dot Christmas Hill Park again, and a larger shade tent will be posted on the north side of Gourmet Alley. Two “rain rooms” are located at opposite ends of the park, which provide not only shade but a cooling mist of water.
Visitors will also be tended to as they leave the park, tired from a day spent in the sun. When lines begin to form at bus stops for parking lot shuttles, Garlic Festival Association volunteers are quick to get out there and provide free, cold water to make them more comfortable, Speno said.
If a heat-related problem does occur, firefighters, paramedics and Emergency Medical Technicians are always available.
“And we’re really trying to speed up the response time,” Speno said. “There hasn’t been a problem, but we just want to make sure that if the guests have a problem, that we’ll be there.”
