Packers-Niners rain: What is weather in Santa Clara today?

The natural elements have become a quite common thread between many of the NFL Playoffs games thus far. Extreme cold in Kansas City and lake effect snow in Buffalo were the narratives of Super Wild Card Weekend. For the Divisional Round, it's more snow in Buffalo and rain on the West Coast.

The Green Bay Packers are traveling to Santa Clara, CA to take on the No. 1 seed San Francisco 49ers, who are coming off a first round bye.

Though Northern California has a reputation for being 75 and sunny at all times, it does indeed experience some interruption to the beauty once in a while. Saturday will be one of those days.

Santa Clara weather today for Packers vs 49ers

This morning has featured precipitation already, and that weather is expected to continue through gametime. The game, which kicks off at 5:15 p.m. local time, is expected to have rain at a rate of about .03 inches per hour according to The Weather Channel through when the game will likely end.

It's expected to be around 55-60 degrees Fahrenheit.

.03 inches is fairly light rain and shouldn't impact either team's offensive strategies too much, though any sort of precipitation does make things like passing and field goals (anything sending the ball in the air) harder. There may be fewer deep downfield passes and more punting on fringe field goal ranges than there would be in perfect conditions.

Expect a few more runs than normal, but the weather is not extreme enough to force either team to completely abandon their passing game.

As far as who this creates an advantage for, perhaps the Niners. Christian McCaffrey is widely regarded as one of, if not the best, running backs in the league, so if there's a need to run the ball more, the Niners will have the advantage weapon.