20 Years Ago…Shreveport’s Snow Bowl? [VIDEO]
It was one of those days, looking back, where just about everybody in the ArkLaTex can tell you where they were and what they were doing. And not just the folks who had tickets the 2000 Sanford Independence Bowl, but everyone who ventured out that New Year's Eve into what any Southerner would describe as a full-bore, white-out blizzard.
The date was December 31, 2000 and Texas A&M and Mississippi State were scheduled for the 7pm kickoff on ESPN. But nobody - not the teams, not the fans and not even the meteorologists - knew what was in store.
The sports website everydayshouldbesaturday.com shared the weather summary from weather.gov:
"Shreveport Regional Airport officially recorded 2.2 inches of snowfall, which was the highest daily total snowfall in Shreveport since February 1, 1985, when 4.4 inches of snowfall was recorded. About 30 minutes before kickoff, snow blew into Shreveport with strong wind whipping from one end zone to the other. The game started with the synthetic grass field a mix of green and white. By the second quarter, the turf was blanketed by snow. Plows were used during timeouts to make the goal lines, end lines, and hash marks visible."
As the snow fell harder and harder and accumulated on the field (not to mention roads across the are) for the more than 36,000 fans in the stands and the hundreds of thousands watching on TV the game became secondary. Ye gods, man! There's a blizzard in Shreveport, Louisiana!
In the end, it turned out to be one of the most exciting nights in I-Bowl history, with Mississippi State knocking off A&M 43-41 in overtime. And the blizzard? Well, it was gone as rapidly as it arrived. By the end of the game the snow had stopped and within 48 hours it was a puddle of a memory, as high temps were back into the upper 60s.